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THE 
CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 


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THE    MACMILLAN   COMPANY 

KSWYORK    •    BOSTON   •    CHICAGO   •   DALLAS 
ATLANTA    •    SAN  FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN  &  CO..  Limited 

LONDON   •    BOMBAY    •    CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OP  CANADA.  Ltd. 

TORONTO 


The  Contents  of  the 
New  Testament 

An  Introductory  Course 


BY 
HAVEN  McCLURE 

(B.  A.,  Harvard;  University  of  Chicago; 

Secretary  English  Council,  Indiana 

State  Teachers*   Association) 


^tva  fork 
THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 
1921 

All  rights  reaerved 


PRINTED  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  AMERICA 


Copyright,  192  i 
By  haven  McCLURE 


Set  up  and  printed.       Published  July,  1923 


FERRIS 

PRINTING   COMPANY 

NEW   YORK  CITY 


PREFACE 

This  book  is  the  crystallization  of  a  number  of  years* 
classroom  experience  in  teaching  the  New  Testament 
as  an  elective  English  course  in  a  public  high  school 
of  over  five  hundred  students.  The  objective  has  been 
to  present  the  results  of  the  labors  of  the  world's  great- 
est Bible  scholars  in  a  manner  intelligible  to  the 
younger  mind  and  to  the  general  reader.  At  the  same 
time  an  effort  has  been  made  to  keep  in  consonance 
the  contents  of  the  New  Testament  with  the  revela- 
tions of  modern  science,  and  to  do  this  without  in 
any  way  impairing  anyone's  respect  for  primitive 
Christianity.  Approaching  the  subject  from  the  de- 
tached point  of  view  and  in  modern  phraseology,  the 
writer  is  pleased  to  have  had  this  treatment  of  materi- 
als, particularly  concerning  the  humanity  of  Jesus  and 
of  Paul,  commended  alike  by  Protestant,  Catholic  and 
Jew.  The  author  desires  to  acknowledge  an  indebt- 
edness w^iich  can  never  be  adequately  repaid  to  O.  M. 
Pittenger,  Superintendent  of  the  Indiana  State  School 
for  the  Deaf,  and  to  L.  G.  Hickman,  critic  teacher  of 
English  at  Indiana  University,  both  of  whom  read 
the  manuscript  in  part,  and  but  for  whose  encourage- 
ment it  might  never  have  been  begun  or  completed; 
to  Edgar  J.  Goodspeed,  professor  of  New  Testament 
interpretation  and  patristic  Greek  at  the  University  of 


ii  PREFACE 

Chicago,  who  suggested  certain  ideas  reflected  therein, 
and  who  read  the  materials  concerning  the  Fourth 
Gospel ;  and  most  of  all  to  my  dear  friend,  Clayton  R. 
Bowen,  professor  of  New  Testament  interpretation  in 
the  Meadville,  Pa.,  Theological  School,  the  ideal  type 
of  Christian  scholar  and  gentleman,  to  whom  more 
than  any  other  one  person  the  writer  is  forever  obli- 
gated concerning  New  Testament  criticism.  Finally, 
to  the  many  bright  minds  of  those  younger  people  who 
have  taken  the  writer's  course  of  New  Testament 
study  in  high  school,  he  is  indebted  for  many  sugges- 
tions that  would  otherwise  not  have  been  incorpor- 
ated. 
January,  1921.  H.  M. 


PART   I 

AN  ELEMENTARY  INTRODUCTION  TO  THE 
DOCUMENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 


I.    THE  DOCUMENTS  OF  THE  NEW 
TESTAMENT 

A.  Gospel. 

I.     The  Precepts  of  Jesus: 

a.  The  Matthean  Tradition. 

b.  The  Petrine  Tradition  of  Mark. 

c.  The  Petrine  Tradition  of  Luke. 

d.  The  Johannine  Tradition. 

B.  Apostolic  Narrative: 

I.     The  Acts  of  Peter  and  Paul. 

C.  Apostolic  Letters : 

I.     The  Pauline  Letters  (in  time  order): 

a.  Thessalonians  A  (I  Thess.) 

b.  Galatians. 

c.  Corinthians  A  (H  Cor.  6  :i4  to  7  :i ). 

d.  Corinthians  B  (I  Corinthians). 

e.  Corinthians  C  (H  Cor.  10-13  inc.). 

f.  Corinthians  D  (H  Cor.  1-9,  inc.). 

g.  Romans  (minus  chapter  16). 

h.     A  note  to  Ephesus  (Romans  16). 
i.     Colossians  (slightly  revised  by  a  later 

hand), 
j.     Philemon, 
k.     Philippians. 

1.     Fragments  of  H  Timothy  and  Titus. 
3 


4    THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 


D. 


2.     The  < 

Catholic  (or  General)  Letters: 

a. 

Hebrews  (not  by  Paul). 

b. 

Thessalonians  B   (H  Thess.,  pseudo- 

Pauline). 

c. 

Ephesians  (pseudo-Pauline). 

d. 

Timothy  A  (I  Tim.,  pseudo-Pauline) 

e. 

Timothy  B  (H  Tim.,  pseudo-Pauline) 

f. 

Titus  (pseudo-Pauline). 

g- 

I  Peter  (embodies  Romans  I2  and  13) 

h. 

H  Peter  (a  revised  edition  of  Jude) 

i. 

I  John. 

J- 

H  John. 

k. 

HI  John. 

1. 

James. 

m. 

Jude  (embodied  in  H  Peter). 

Apocalypse,  or  Revelation. 

II.     WHAT  IS  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT? 

When  one  studies  the  New  Testament  he  is  not 
reading  a  "book,"  but  a  series  of  miscellaneous  docu- 
ments, twenty-seven  in  number,  which  are  not  even 
in  themselves  ''books"  in  the  modern  sense  of  that 
term.  The  New  Testament  was  originally  written  on 
sheets  or  leaves  of  papyrus,  in  the  Greek  language, 
without  any  divisions  into  "chapters"  or  "verses,"  and 
without  punctuation  or  capitalization  of  the  text  as 
we  understand  such  mechanical  devices  in  modern 
times.  The  word  "book"  or  "books"  as  applied  to 
the  New  Testament,  in  whole  or  in  part,  are  merely 
terms  used  for  the  convenience  of  the  publisher  and 
printer,  and  of  the  reader. 

There  could  have  been  no  NEW  Testament,  more- 
over, if  there  had  not  been  at  the  times  of  the  appear- 
ance of  its  documents  the  conscious  possession  on  the 
part  of  the  early  church  of  a  body  of  sacred  writings 
known  to  us  to-day  as  the  OLD  Testament.  The 
word  "testament"  itself,  unfortunately,  is  an  ambigu- 
ous word  with  a  variety  of  meanings ;  it  often  refers 
in  modern  terminology  to  the  making  of  a  will,  and 
it  also  means  "contract"  or  "covenant."  In  the  Bib- 
lical sense  of  the  word  "testament,"  God  is  one  party 
to  an  agreement,  and  mankind  to  another ;  man  agrees 
to  obey  and  abide  by  the  will  of  God  in  exchange  for 
blessings    and    divine   protection   and   guidance.      In 

5 


6    THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

other  words,  there  is  a  reciprocal  exchange  of  wor- 
ship and  blessing.  Thus  the  Bible  deals  with  the 
relation  of  man  to  God.  The  Old  Testament  (or  con- 
tract) was  based  on  "the  Mosaic  ministry  of  condem- 
nation and  death"  told  vividly  in  the  story  of  Adam 
and  Eve  and  in  the  giving  of  the  Ten  Commandments. 
In  the  appearance  of  the  various  documents  of  the 
New  Testament,  it  became  increasingly  apparent  and 
realized  that  God  had,  in  the  life  and  death  of  Jesus, 
made  a  new  covenant,  or  contract,  or  testament,  with 
mankind.  The  distinction  is  sharply  drawn  in  the 
ninth  chapter  of  the  Letter  to  the  Hebrews. 

In  its  final  form  the  New  Testament  is  a  peculiarly 
miscellaneous,  heterogeneous  series  of  documents. 
We  call  it,  or  miscall  it,  a  book,  and  take  it  for 
granted,  most  of  us,  without  stopping  to  consider  its 
somewhat  haphazard  makeup.  Our  fathers  had  it,  our 
grandfathers  possessed  it,  our  ancestors  owned  it,  and 
as  Christian  people  we  simply  take  it  for  granted.  But 
there  was  a  long  time  that  the  church  did  not  have 
it:  many  Christians  lived  and  died  before  it  came 
into  being.  The  church  grasped  firmly  these  docu- 
ments when  brought  finally  into  one  collection,  and 
did  not  debate  or  deny  their  authenticity,  but  gave 
them  merely  a  somewhat  belated  ratification  in  the 
early  councils,  and  settled  their  status  by  a  common 
Christian  consciousness  rather  than  by  scientific  criti- 
cal judgments.  For  instance,  the  Letter  of  Jude  sur- 
vived through  a  combination  of  incalculable  circum- 
stances which  we  at  this  late  day  can  no  longer  recon- 
struct. Galatians  deals  purely  with  a  local  episode 
and  an  obsolete  problem,  yet  it  has  survived  and  is 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT     7 

still   valuable   in   spiritual   battles,   just   as   the   song 
"America"  with  its  lines 

"I  love  thy  rocks  and  rills, 

Thy  woods  and  templed  hills," 

obviously  reflects  the  landscape  of  New  England  with 

white  meeting-houses  on  the  hills  and  the  sentiments 

of  a  Yankee  parson,  yet  is  national  in  patriotic  appeal. 

Who  wrote  the  New  Testament?  When  was  it  writ- 
ten? Where  was  it  written?  And  why  was  it  writ- 
ten? It  is,  after  all,  the  last  question  that  is  most 
important.  The  authorship  is  purely  a  secondary 
affair;  so  is  the  time  of  its  being  written;  so  is  the 
place ;  and  possibly  no  one  knew  these  things  better 
than  those  who  wrote  it.  No  "book"  or  document  is 
dated ;  the  identity  of  the  authors  of  a  number  of  them 
is  uncertain,  and  probably  never  will  be  known  with 
assurance;  nor  is  it  important  for  practical  purposes 
to  know  absolutely.  In  many  cases  the  names  of  the 
authors  placed  at  the  heading  of  certain  documents 
like  Hebrews,  Ephesians,  and  the  Fourth  Gospel  are 
merely  editorial  opinion,  and  later  research  and  inves- 
tigation has  tended  to  modify  or  to  reverse  the  origi- 
nal verdicts.  WHY  these  documents  came  into  exist- 
ence is  by  far  the  greatest  and  most  important  ques- 
tion. 

Were  they  written  under  the  impulse  to  "get  into 
print,"  as  many  a  modern  scribbler  with  the  literary 
scabies  tries  to  do  ?  Was  fame  the  goal  of  the  authors  ? 
Obviously  not,  because  many  are  very  unskilled  in 
workmanship,  such  as  Ephesians,  Mark,  and  Revela- 
tion, and  are  written  by  people  apparently  not  used 
to  writing  (we  are  now  speaking  of  the  original  Greek 


8    THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

texts).  Each  document  seems  to  reflect  some  great 
urgency  or  vital  emergency ;  and  no  suggestion  is  con- 
veyed anywhere  of  its  having  been  done  for  fame,  for 
pay,  or  for  literary  practice.  Moreover,  one-third  or 
more  of  the  New  Testament  documents  are  anony- 
mous; the  author's  name  at  the  head  of  these  in  each 
case,  as  has  been  said  before,  is  merely  a  matter  of 
editorial  conjecture,  and  on  a  number  of  these  there 
is  hopeless  disagreement  among  modern  scholars. 

The  chief  point,  therefore,  seems  to  be  that  for  the 
most  part  they  were  written  under  the  spell  of  an 
overmastering  religious  experience  which  the  various 
authors  wished  to  share  with  other  people.  This  fact 
is  betrayed  in  innumerable  passages, — for  instance  the 
language  of  Paul,  "The  love  of  Christ  overmasters  us" 
(11  Cor.  5:14),  and  in  the  language  attributed  to 
Stephen  in  Acts  7:55-60.  Paul,  in  particular,  is  usu- 
ally most  painfully  excited  or  distressed  when  he 
writes ;  his  style  is  not  only  hurried  but  weighted  with 
strain  and  stress ;  and,  to  cap  the  climax,  the  letters 
are  usually  impromptu  and  occasional,  inspired  by 
some  emergency  which  must  be  immediately  met  and 
decisively  overcome,  if  possible.  Paul's  letters,  there- 
fore, are  primarily  local  and  contemporary  in  purpose, 
but  thrilled  throughout  as  they  are  by  a  burning  re- 
ligious conviction,  their  universal  element  lives  on  and 
appeals  to  the  present  day  Christian  as  much  as  to 
the  first  and  second  century  Christian.  The  New 
Testament,  then,  is  not  only  a  series  of  miscellaneous 
documents;  in  its  message  it  justifies  the  definition  of 
Professor  Bacon  of  being  "the  precipitate  of  the  great- 
est period  in  the  history  of  religion." 


III.     THE  STRUCTURE  OF  THE  NEW 
TESTAMENT 

As  we  have  seen,  the  New  Testament  is  a  series  of 
miscellaneous  documents,  twenty-seven  in  all,  over 
one-third  of  which  are  totally  anonymous.  It  now  re- 
mains to  notice  that  somewhat  curious  manner  in 
which  these  documents  are  arranged  as  they  appear 
in  the  New  Testament  in  its  present  form.  They 
obviously  are  not  placed  in  the  time  order  in  which 
they  are  written,  for  if  such  were  the  case  I  Thessa- 
lonians  and  Galatians  would  have  to  come  first,  and 
the  Fourth  Gospel  possibly  last,  which  would  make  a 
strange  looking  medley  to  eyes  accustomed  to  the 
traditional  order  of  arrangement.  Therefore,  other 
reasons  must  be  sought  for  the  latter  than  that  purely 
of  time  order. 

Four  very  similar  documents  in  form  and  subject- 
matter,  commonly  called  the  Four  Gospels,  stand  first 
in  the  canon,  or  ratified  and  approved  list.  Four  Gos- 
pels !  Such  a  phrase  would  doubtless  have  been  shock- 
ing and  offensive  to  the  ears  and  minds  of  the  early 
apostles.  Paul  very  emphatically  in  Galatians  (i :  6-9) 
says  that  there  is  no  gospel  but  one,  and  "though  we, 
or  an  angel  from  heaven,  preach  any  other  gospel  unto 
you  than  that  which  we  have  preached  unto  you,  let 
him  be  accursed,"  and  proceeds  in  almost  identical 
language  to  reiterate  the  statement.  The  Greek  ver- 
sion of  the  New  Testament  is  more  accurate  in  this 

9 


10  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

respect:  it  has  "The  Gospel"  with  a,  b,  c,  and  d  as 
the  four  subheads.  It  is  well  worth  while  to  notice 
that  in  the  English  version  it  is  "Gospel  According 
To,"  and  not  "By"  Matthew,  Mark,  Luke,  and  John, 
for  the  real  author  of  the  Gospel  message  is  Jesus 
himself.  The  Gospel  is  the  heart  of  the  religious  mes- 
sage of  Christianity,  and  contains  the  precepts  of 
Jesus  with  just  sufficient  fragmentary  biographical 
details  concerning  his  life  to  give  an  idea  of  the  setting 
under  which  the  words  were  spoken.  They  are  not 
primarily  biographies.  Some  of  the  Gospel  messages 
are  well  done  by  their  authors ;  some  are  ill  done ;  all 
are  sincere,  straightforward,  and  vital.  They  are  not 
loquacious,  or  descriptive,  or  laudatory,  or  argumen- 
tative for  the  benefit  of  the  reader;  they  do  not  pre- 
tend to  be  purely  chronicles ;  they  were  not  primarily 
written  for  their  historical  value;  in  fact,  they  are 
mainly  preaching.  They  all  have  a  conscious  religious 
message,  built  on  the  foundations  of  the  apostles, 
prophets,  martyrs,  and  saints,  who  were  all  builders, 
and  Jesus  is  the  cornerstone. 

Everyone  felt  at  the  outset  when  the  documents  of 
the  New  Testament  were  collected  and  ratified  by  the 
early  church  councils,  and  before  and  since  that  no 
doubt,  the  supreme,  unchallenged  importance  of  the 
Gospels;  hence,  they  come  first  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment. They  do  not  come  in  chronological  order,  for 
no  one  was  interested  primarily  in  the  dates  of  their 
composition.  Matthew's  Gospel  stands  first  simply 
because  it  was,  and  still  is,  the  most  popular,  the  most 
widely  read  and  quoted.  We  pray  the  Lord's  Prayer 
according  to  Matthew,  we  baptize  and  marry  to  his 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  ii 

words,  and  we  naturally  prefer  to  quote  his  versions 
of  the  parables  and  miracles.  Renan  says  that  this 
Gospel  is  the  greatest  book  which  has  ever  been  writ- 
ten, the  most  important  book  in  the  history  of  the 
world.  Mark's  gospel  account,  probably  the  first  to 
have  been  written,  and  used  by  the  authors  of  Mat- 
thew and  Luke  as  the  basis  for  their  Gospels,  comes 
second  because  of  its  marked  similarity  to  Matthew  in 
subject-matter  and  arrangement  of  materials,  and  be- 
cause both  are  generally  considered  to  have  been  writ- 
ten by  Jews.  Luke's  Gospel  resembles  its  two  pre- 
decessors to  quite  an  extent,  but  differs  from  them 
sharply  in  adding  brand  new  materials ;  hence,  it  is 
placed  third  in  the  canon.  John's  Gospel  is  last  in 
order  because  of  the  universal  consciousness  on  the 
part  of  the  early  church  of  its  lateness  in  point  of 
time.  The  first  three  Gospels  are  commonly  desig- 
nated the  Synoptic  Gospels  because  they  "see  together" 
or  from  a  common  standpoint  the  principal  facts  of 
the  life  of  Jesus.  The  Fourth  Gospel  is  theology. 
Clement  of  Alexandria,  one  of  tl\e  early  church  fath- 
ers, says  that  the  synoptic  writers  wrote  "bodily  facts," 
but  that  John  wrote  a  spiritual  summary  to  crown 
those  facts.  As  an  example  of  the  curious  guesswork 
indulged  by  traditional  New  Testament  expositors, 
some  former  commentators  have  said  that  Mark  and 
Luke's  Gospels,  their  authors  not  being  apostles  of 
the  original  twelve,  have  been  "taken  between"  Mat- 
thew and  John  as  pupils  or  proteges,  as  it  were,  which 
accounts  for  the  position  of  these  two  Gospels  in  the 
canon,  and  for  that  of  all  four  in  their  respective  po- 
sitions. 


12  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

The  Acts  of  the  Apostles  comes  after  the  Gospel  as 
a  sort  of  bridge  between  Jesus  and  the  apostles,  and 
as  a  connecting  link  between  the  gospel  message  itself 
and  the  epistles  written  by  missionary  apostles  to 
churches  and  individuals.  "Acts"  here  is  an  extremely 
awkward  word.  Whose  acts?  The  Germans  say  "die 
Apostelgeschichte,"  or  "Apostles'  Acts,"  emphasizing 
the  first  word,  but  this  does  not  remove  the  difficulty. 
Are  they  the  acts  of  all  the  apostles?  Except  for  a 
few  subordinate  labors  of  Philip  and  Barnabas  and 
Stephen,  the  document  concerns  mainly  Peter  and 
Paul.  All  New  Testament  scholars  have  noted  how 
the  name  of  John  is  "peppered"  into  the  Book  of  Acts 
in  connection  with  that  of  Peter.  The  expression 
"Peter  and  John"  occurs  at  least  eight  times,  and 
"Peter  with  John"  once;  but  the  reader  notices  that 
Peter  does  all  the  talking  while  John  is  present  in 
name  only.  As  someone  has  said,  "John  acts  like  a 
stowaway."  An  accurate  title  for  this  document  more 
nearly,  then,  would  be  "The  Acts  of  Peter  and  Paul." 

As  to  the  Pauline  epistles,  Romans  and  Corinthians 
were  certainly  not  the  first  of  Paul's  letters  and  Phile- 
mon last  in  order  of  writing,  but  these  letters  are  ar- 
ranged in  the  New  Testament  in  order  of  length. 
Romans  has  sixteen  "chapters,"  which  is  a  longer 
letter  than  most  of  us  have  ever  written,  and  little 
Philemon  brings  up  the  rear  of  the  procession.  Was 
Hebrews  written  by  Paul?  If  so,  it  would  logically 
come  between  First  and  Second  Corinthians.  If  not 
by  the  hand  of  Paul,  it  is  precisely  where  it  belongs, — 
the  first  and  longest  of  the  catholic  (universal,  general) 
letters. 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  13 

Not  everyone  is  agreed,  after  reading  Revelation, 
as  to  just  what  is  revealed,  but  it  is  said  to  be  "things 
the  must  shortly  come  to  pass"  (Rev.  i :  i,  the  word 
"shortly"  being  an  elastic  word,  of  course).  At  least 
four  diverse  views  are  held  by  those  who  attempt  an 
interpretation  of  this  document,  which  is  written  in 
very  bad  Greek.  The  futurist  interpreter  believes  the 
whole  of  it  refers  to  events  connected  with  the  second 
coming  of  Jesus  and  the  "end  of  the  world."  The 
historical  interpreter  professes  to  find  pictorial  de- 
scriptions of  events  dotted  over  the  face  of  history 
from  the  early  days  of  the  church  to  the  "end  of  the 
world."  For  instance,  the  various  beasts  of  the  book 
have  been  identified  with  such  characters  as  Luther, 
Napoleon,  and  the  last  Kaiser  of  Germany.  The  spir- 
itual interpreter  understands  the  document's  symbolism 
to  typify  some  good  or  evil  principle  common  to  every 
age  of  the  world,  much  after  the  manner  of  Spenser's 
"Faerie  Queen,"  which  attempts  the  same  thing.  The 
preterist  interpreter,  which  includes  the  majority  of 
modern,  unbiased  scholars,  finds  in  the  book  a  reflec- 
tion of  the  conditions  prevailing  at  the  time  of  its 
writing.  All  recent  evidence  tends  to  prove  that  the 
reader  of  the  second  century  saw  more  in  the  book 
than  we  do  now.  The  New  Testament  of  the  Greek 
Orthodox  Church  rejects  this  document  as  apocryphal, 
and  refuses  it  a  place  in  the  canon,  which  serves  fur- 
ther to  show  the  many-sidedness  of  the  controversy 
which  has  raged  for  centuries  about  the  authenticity 
and  meaning  of  the  document. 


IV.    THE   SYNOPTIC   GOSPELS. 

We  have  seen  in  our  examination  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment documents  that  there  are  four  very  similar  docu- 
ments standing  in  the  front  of  the  procession,  com- 
monly known  as  the  Four  Gospels ;  that  the  expres- 
sion "four  gospels"  would  have  been  in  all  probability 
highly  offensive  to  the  ears  of  the  early  Apostles,  since 
Paul  says  in  Galatians  i :  6-8  that  there  is  no  gospel 
but  one,  of  which  Jesus  is  the  author;  that  because 
of  their  supreme,  unchallenged  importance  they  come 
first  in  the  New  Testament,  and  not  because  they  were 
written  first,  for  they  were  not.  Paul's  letters  were 
the  first  New  Testament  documents  to  see  the  light 
of  day.  The  Gospel  is  the  heart  of  the  religious  mes- 
sage of  Christianity,  and  consists  of  the  precepts  of 
Jesus  to  his  followers,  with  an  idea  of  the  circum- 
stances under  which  they  were  uttered.  Some  are 
well-done ;  some  are  ill-done ;  all  are  sincere,  straight- 
forward, and  vital.  They  do  not  pretend  to  be  chroni- 
cles ;  they  do  not  profess  to  have  been  written  primar- 
ily for  their  historical  value ;  they  are  mainly  preach- 
ing. There  is  a  great  deal  of  gospel  in  the  Book  of 
Acts.  The  Gospel  in  its  four  divisions  all  have  a 
conscious  religious  message,  built  on  the  foundation 

14 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  15 

of  the  apostles,  prophets,  martyrs,  and  saints,  who 
were  all  builders,  and  Jesus  is  the  cornerstone.  By 
the  time  the  remaining  documents  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment are  written,  the  church  is  built  on  Jesus  not,  as 
originally,  the  whole  foundation,  but  upon  the  fol- 
lowers of  Jesus  as  well. 

We  have  pointed  out  that  many  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment documents  are  apparently  written  by  men  not 
much  used  to  writing,  and  that  some  of  them  betray 
this  artlessness.  For  instance,  Mark  is  fond  of  the 
word  ''straightway,'*  which  occurs  forty-two  times  in 
his  gospel,  and  eleven  times  (in  Greek)  in  Chapter  i 
alone.  It  is  a  breathless  way  of  saying, — "and  then," 
— "and  then," — "and  then," — to  make  the  narrative  in 
some  manner  crudely  coherent.  In  Matthew  21 :  7,  in 
speaking  of  Jesus  riding  the  animal  of  the  Triumphant 
Entry,  the  Greek  version  amazingly  reads  as  follows : 
"And  they  brought  the  ass,  and  the  colt,  and  put  on 
them  their  clothes,  and  set  him  ON  THEM."  In 
Luke's  Gospel,  Jesus  leaves  Galilee  to  go  to  Jerusa- 
lem in  9:51.  In  9:52  we  find  him  in  Samaria.  In 
10 :  38,  he  has  entered  a  "certain  village"  where  Mary 
and  Martha  live.  In  13:32,  he  went  "through  the 
cities  and  villages,  journeying  toward  Jerusalem."  In 
17:  II,  the  following  somewhat  astonishing  statement 
is  made :  "And  it  came  to  pass,  as  he  went  to  Jerusa- 
lem, that  he  passed  through  the  midst  of  Samaria  and 
Galilee"!  In  19:  i  he  has  entered  Jericho,  in  verse  29, 
Bethany,  and  in  verses  41-45,  finally  into  Jerusalem. 
Nine  chapters !  What  Luke  has  done,  of  course,  is  to 
have  found  suddenly  that  he  had  on  hand  a  bulk  of 
materials  about  the  ministry  of  Jesus  given  nowhere 


i6  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

else,  and  he  crushes  it  into  his  narrative  in  these  chap- 
ters. It  is  painful  from  the  literary  standpoint,  but 
from  the  religious,  of  course,  is  relatively  unimpor- 
tant. In  Luke  i6:  16-18,  some  interpolations  are  in- 
troduced vi^hich  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  rest  of 
the  entire  chapter,  which  has  excited  some  wonder 
among  scholars. 

We  talk  very  confidently  of  the  authors  of  the  Four 
Gospels,  just  as  though  we  were  certain  of  their  iden- 
tity. Yet  every  Gospel  is  anonymous,  and  the  author 
gives  no  clue  as  to  his  person.  The  writers  are  as- 
toundingly  self-effacing.  Therefore,  it  is  better  to 
say,  as  does  Bacon,  not  the  Gospel  according  to  Mat- 
thew, which  after  all  is  only  a  tradition,  but  "The 
Matthean  Tradition  of  the  Precepts  of  Jesus,"  which 
is  an  accurate,  scholarly  title,  and  impairs  in  no  man- 
ner the  religious  value  of  the  document.  Similarly, 
Mark  and  Luke,  for  reasons  which  will  presently  ap- 
pear, may  be  called  the  Petrine  Tradition,  and  the 
Fourth  Gospel,  the  Johannine  Tradition. 

THE  SYNOPTIC  PROBLEM 

The  differences  in  the  first  three  gospels  are  not  as 
surprising  as  their  likenesses  when  they  are  read  side 
by  side  by  means  of  a  harmony.  The  common  picture 
of  the  earthly  life  of  Jesus  behind  the  Synoptics  must 
be  quite  close  to  the  original.  All  three  give  the  pre- 
cepts and  biographical  fragments  of  Jesus'  life  in  prac- 
tically the  same  time  order ;  often  their  phraseology  is 
strikingly  similar;  and  out  of  a  grand  total  of  2890 
verses  in  all  three  gospels,  450  verses  are  virtually 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  17 

identical  in  thought  and  language.     A  close  relation- 
ship, therefore,  must  surely  exist  among  the  three. 

THE  IMPORTANCE  OF  MARK'S  GOSPEL 

Although  Matthew's  Gospel  has  always  been  the 
most  popular,  and  has  therefore  stood  first  among  all 
the  New  Testament  documents,  in  recent  years  the 
attention  of  Bible  scholars  has  been  turned  more  and 
more  to  Mark's  Gospel.  It  is  the  shortest  of  the  three, 
and  very  naturally  serves  as  the  starting-point  in  com- 
paring the  Synoptics.  Comparison  has  revealed  that 
fifteen-sixteenths  of  Mark, — nearly  all, — is  embodied 
in  Matthew,  and  almost  as  much  in  Luke.  Since  this 
is  indisputable,  Mark's  Gospel  may  very  appropriately 
be  denominated  the  "Cinderella  Gospel,"  which  for 
years  has  lain  among  the  ashes  of  neglect  while  its 
more  elaborate  sisters  have  carried  off  the  palms  of 
praise  and  attention,  but  which  now  has  finally  come 
into  its  own  as  probably  the  most  important  of  all 
New  Testament  documents.  For  without  Mark,  there 
could  have  been  no  Matthew  and  Luke,  in  their  pres- 
ent form  at  least.  Because  Mark  writes  a  blunt,  jour- 
nalistic, brief,  pictorial  style,  after  the  Mark  Twain 
fashion,  he  was  called  in  the  early  church,  "Old  Stub- 
Finger,"  and  his  gospel  the  "Stub-Fingered  Gospel." 
If  Mark  is  the  oldest  Gospel,  and  the  basis  for  the 
other  three,  where  did  he  get  his  material?  An  an- 
cient church  father  of  the  first  century,  Papias,  bishop 
of  Hierapolis,  according  to  Eusebius,  says,  "Mark, 
being  the  interpreter  of  Peter,  wrote  down  what  things 
he  remembered  that  the  Lord  had  said  or  done,"  and 
goes  on  to  say  that  they  are  not  in  time  order,  but 


i8  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

that  nothing  important  is  omitted.  Peter  could  not 
speak  Greek,  and  used  Mark  as  his  interpreter  to  the 
Greek-speaking  audiences  of  the  West.  Mark  had 
recounted  them  over  and  over,  and  when  "the  living 
document,"  Peter,  was  dead,  Mark  sat  down  and  wrote 
down  "what  he  remembered,"  which  accounts  in  full 
for  the  rough,  informal,  descriptive,  miscellaneous 
character  of  his  document.  The  death  of  the  Apostle 
Peter  was  the  event  that  precipitated  the  writing  of 
the  first  Gospel.  The  Gospel  of  Mark  has  aptly  been 
called  "The  Memoirs  of  the  Apostle  Peter."  Curi- 
ously enough,  everything  is  written  from  the  stand- 
point of  the  Apostle  Peter :  everything  happens  when 
Peter  is  present;  Peter  does  considerable  talking; 
Jesus  talks  chiefly  to  Peter.  It  is  honestly  done,  for 
Jesus'  rebukes  of  Peter  are  given  with  their  original 
vigor.  Mark  merely  draws  back  the  curtain  on  the 
life  drama  he  is  recording.  He  is  wholly  neutral  and 
unemotional.  Had  he  commented  personally  on  his 
Gospel,  he  probably  would  have  played  havoc  with  his 
materials.  He  is  non-theological  and  objective.  So 
much  cannot  be  said  for  Matthew  and  Luke,  who 
color  their  narratives  to  suit  special  purposes. 

Finally  it  may  be  said  that  if  Mark  had  any  model 
in  mind  for  his  Gospel  narrative,  it  was  probably  I  and 
n  Kings  of  the  Old  Testament.  For  wherever  Mark 
is  able,  he  parallels  the  life  of  Jesus  with  that  of  Elisha 
and  Elijah. 

THE  GOSPELS  OF  MATTHEW  AND  LUKE 

A  comparison  of  Matthew  and  Luke  shows  that  both 
do  two  things:    (i)   They  follow   Mark's  narrative; 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  19 

and  (2)  they  have  materials  common  to  each  other  not 
given  by  Mark.  This  second  material  is  called  by  all 
New  Testament  scholars  Q,  which  is  the  initial  letter 
of  the  German  word  "Quelle,"  meaning  simply 
"source."    Therefore,  algebraically  we  may  say, 

Matthew  =  Mark  +  Q. 

A  further  examination  will  show  that  Luke  has,  in 
addition  to  Q,  an  infancy  narrative  not  given  by  Mat- 
thew, and  a  section  called  the  Perean  Section  which 
describes  the  trip  to  Jerusalem  previously  discussed, 
and  which  contains  the  Parables  of  the  Prodigal  Son, 
the  Rich  Man  and  Lazarus,  the  Good  Samaritan,  etc., 
which  are  given  alone  by  Luke.  Therefore,  in  express- 
ing Luke  algebraically  it  is  necessary  to  say, 

Luke  =  Mark  -|-  Q  +  ^^^  Infancy  Narrative  -\-  a 
Perean  Section. 

But  what  is  Q?  The  answer  is  briefly  that  Q  is 
simply  a  document,  now  lost,  containing  a  Collection 
of  the  Sayings  of  Jesus.  Matthew  and  Luke  wrote 
with  Mark's  narrative  and  this  document  lying  before 
them.  Q  contains,  for  instance,  the  Sermon  of  John 
the  Baptizer  (Matt.  3:7-12  and  Luke  3:7-9  and  16, 
17)  ;  the  Temptation  Dialogue  (Matt.  4:  3-10  and  Luke 
4:  3-12) ;  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  which  contains  the 
Lord's  Prayer  (Matt.  6  and  Luke  11) ;  the  Parables  by 
the  Lakeside  (Matt.  13  and  Luke  13);  and  the  Invec- 
tive against  the  Pharisees  (Matt.  23  and  Luke  11). 
These,  it  will  be  noticed,  are  collections  of  precepts 
and  sayings.  Therefore,  if  one  were  asked.  How  many 
times,  and  where,  does  the  Lord's  Prayer  occur  in  the 
New  Testament?  our  above  algebraic  formula,  if  re- 
called, will  solve  our  memory  problem.     Since  it  is  Q 


20  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

material,  the  Lord's  Prayer  will  be  found  twice  in 
the  New  Testament, — in  Matthew  and  Luke.  These 
are  important  principles  for  students  of  the  New  Tes- 
tament, who  should  be  sure  that  they  understand  them 
before  leaving  them.  In  our  study  of  certain  problems 
of  the  life  of  Jesus,  we  shall  refer  to  these  formulas 
again. 

A  TRADITIONAL  VIEW  OF  THE  FOUR 
GOSPELS  AND  THEIR  AUTHORS 

(i)  MATTHEW.— What  little  we  know  of  the  tra- 
ditional Matthew  is  confined  to  the  four  Gospels,  and 
they  give  but  little.  He  was  originally  known  as  Levi, 
son  of  Alphaeus  (Matt.  9:9;  Mark  2:  14).  His  occu- 
pation previous  to  his  discipleship  was  that  of  a  pub- 
lican, or  tax-gatherer,  collecting  passenger-tolls  from 
the  sea  of  Galilee  (Matt.  9:9).  After  this  farewell 
feast  to  his  list  of  friends  at  his  house  in  Capernaum 
(Luke  5:  29),  his  name  only  appears  in  the  list  of  the 
twelve,  usually  in  connection  with  that  of  Thomas, 
who,  like  Matthew,  was  of  a  practical  turn  of  mind 
(John  20:24-25).  Simon  Greenleaf,  late  professor  of 
evidence  in  the  Harvard  Law  School,  commends  the 
far-sighted  wisdom  of  Jesus  in  selecting  Matthew  as  a 
disciple.  Here  was  a  business  man,  a  hated  Roman 
tax-ferret,  shrewd,  calculating,  cool,  level-headed,  and 
not  liable  to  believe  what  he  could  not  plainly  see  and 
hear.  Yet  Matthew  wrote  "the  most  important  book 
which  has  ever  been  written,"  according  to  Ernest 
Renan  (1823-1892),  a  French  Orientalist,  and  a  schol- 
arly observer.  According  to  Harnack,  a  German  au- 
thority,  the   Gospel  According  to   St.   Matthew  was 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  21 

written  probably  about  75  A.  D.     Matthew's  Gospel 
was  written  primarily  to  the  Jews,  because : 

(a)  He  traces  the  ancestry  of  Jesus  only  back  as 
far  as  Abraham,  father  of  the  Jewish  race,  while  Luke 
traces  it  clear  back  to  Adam,  father  of  both  Jew  and 
Gentile.  This  was  done  probably  as  a  concession  to 
Jewish  prejudice,  and  to  maintain  the  sympathy  of  his 
readers. 

(b)  Matthew  never  stops  to  explain  Jewish  terms 
and  customs,  for  all  Jews  who  read  knew  them  al- 
ready (e.  g.,  Matt.  5:22). 

(c)  Matthew  constantly  and  tactfully  quotes  the 
Old  Testament  to  prove  the  Messiahship  of  Jesus. 

(d)  Matthew,  knowing  the  Jews  to  be  a  race  of 
students,  devotes  much  space  to  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount  (Matt.  5,  6,  and  7),  and  much  to  parables  and 
eschatology  (end  of  the  world). 

(e)  Matthew  exalts  Jesus  as  the  Jewish  Messiah,  and 
emphasizes  his  Jewish  characteristics  more  than  the 
other  Gospels. 

(2)  MARK. — The  Gospel  of  Mark  is  the  earliest  and 
the  shortest  gospel,  having  been  written  about  70 
A.  D.  according  to  St.  Jerome  and  other  early  church 
fathers.  Mark,  or  John  Mark,  first  appears  in  the  New 
Testament  in  Acts  12:12.  His  mother's  name  was 
Mary,  a  well-to-do  and  benevolent  Christian  of  the 
early  dangerous  days  of  the  church.  Mark  started 
with  his  relative,  Barnabas,  and  Paul  (Col.  4:  10)  on 
their  first  missionary  journey,  but  for  some  reason, 
commonly  inferred  as  timidity,  Mark  turned  back  at 
Perga  (Acts  12:25  and  13:13),  much  to  Paul's  dis- 
gust (Acts  15:  36-40).    Paul  and  Mark  were  afterward 


22  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

reconciled  (Col.  4:10;  Philemon  24;  H  Timothy  4: 
11),  but  thereafter  Mark  seems  to  have  been  a  sort  of 
private  secretary  to  the  apostle  Peter  (I  Peter  5:  13), 
at  whose  dictation  he  wrote  facts  of  his  Gospel.  Mark's 
Gospel  was  written  primarily  to  the  Romans,  because : 

(a)  Mark  writes  a  terse,  brief,  Latin  style.  His  gos- 
pel is  short,  and  not  a  word  is  wasted.  It  is  essen- 
tially a  vivid  narrative  of  action. 

(b)  Mark  stops  to  explain  Hebrew  terms  and  cus- 
toms (Mark  3:17;  5  :  41 ;  7:1-11;  15  :  34).  Money  is 
reduced  to  Roman  units  of  currency  (Mark  12:42; 
14:5).    See  also  Mark  13:  3. 

(c)  Mark  quotes  the  Old  Testament  very  seldom. 

(d)  Mark  holds  up  Jesus  as  a  King,  having  power 
over  both  the  visible  and  invisible  worlds,  not  as  a 
prophet. 

(e)  Mark  appeals  to  Roman  civilization  as  nearly 
on  its  own  level  as  possible.  The  Romans  worshipped 
power,  and  Mark  gives  a  narrative  of  action  and 
mighty  deeds  on  the  part  of  Jesus,  as  much  as  is  pos- 
sible from  the  nature  of  his  subject-matter. 

(3)  LUKE. — The  author  of  the  third  Gospel  may 
have  been  Luke,  "the  beloved  physician"  (Col.  4:  14; 
n  Tim.  4:11;  Philemon  24),  and  narrator  of  the  Acts 
of  the  Apostles  (Compare  Luke  i :  3  with  Acts  1:1). 
He  accompanied  Paul  through  Macedonia  (Acts  16: 
10;  20:6),  back  to  Jerusalem  (Acts  21:4,  15),  and  to 
Rome  (Acts  27:2),  as  told  by  the  "We-Sections"  of 
the  Book  of  Acts.  Luke  apparently  was  a  converted 
Greek  of  high  culture  and  broad  sympathy,  and  like 
Matthew,  a  close  observer.  Dr.  Hobart's  treatise  on 
"The  Medical  Language  of  St.   Luke"  endeavors  to 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  23 

show  that  Luke  goes  into  more  detail  concerning  the 
physical  condition  of  sufferers  who  came  to  Jesus  for 
relief  (Luke  8:29;  8:43);  and  that  he  alone  records 
the  apparent  bloody  sweat  in  Gethsemane  (Luke  22: 
44).  Luke  has  also  been  called  the  Social-Evangelist, 
for  he  records  more  concerning  the  teaching  of  Jesus 
in  its  social  implications  than  the  other  three.  Luke's 
Gospel  was  written  primarily  to  the  Greeks,  because: 

(a)  Luke  himself  was  a  Greek,  and  addresses  his 
Gospel  and  the  Book  of  Acts  to  his  Greek  friend, 
Theophilus  (Luke  1:3;  Acts  1:1). 

(b)  Luke's  Gospel  in  the  original  Greek  is  written 
in  the  purest  and  most  literary  Greek  of  the  four  Gos- 
pels, and  has  a  distinct  literary  preface  (Luke  i :  1-5). 
It  is  also  more  literary  in  that  it  shows  more  scholarly, 
painstaking  research  than  the  other  Evangelists  (Luke 
1 : 3,  4).  Over  half  of  Luke's  Gospel  comprises  ma- 
terial recorded  by  him  alone. 

(c)  Luke  appeals  to  the  cultured,  philosophical, 
beauty-loving  Greek  mind.  He  alone  records  the  five 
earliest  Christian  hymns : 

1.     "The  Ave  Maria":  (Luke  i :  28-33). 
n.     "The  Magnificat" :    (Luke  i :  46-55). 
HL     "The  Benedictus":  (Luke  1:68-79). 
IV.     ""The  Gloria  in  Excelsis":  (Luke  2:  13,  14). 
V.     "The  Nunc  Dimittis" :  (Luke  2:29-32). 
Witness  also  the  exquisite  description  of  the  First 
Christmas  (Luke  2:8-15). 

(d)  Luke  traces  the  ancestry  of  Jesus  back  to 
Adam,  ancestor  of  Gentile  as  well  as  Jew. 

(e)  Luke  appeals  directly  to  the  Greek  outlook  on 
life. 


V.  THE  COMPOSITION  AND  CONTENT  OF 
THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

A  comparison  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  with  the  Synop- 
tic Gospels  reveals  some  startling  facts.  The  most 
startling,  perhaps,  of  all,  is  the  fact  that  the  Jesus  of 
the  Fourth  Gospel  is  strangely  and  incredibly  differ- 
ent from  the  Synoptic  Jesus.  This  fact  has  led  mod- 
ern scholars  to  suspect  that  the  Fourth  Gospel  is,  in 
reality,  not  an  historic  presentation  of  the  life  of  Jesus. 
"John  perceived  that  the  bodily  (physical)  Gospels 
had  been  written,  and  so  wrote  the  spiritual  Gospel," 
says  Clement  of  Alexandria,  and  his  successor,  Origen. 
This  may  account  for  the  fact  that  the  Fourth  Gospel 
contains  so  little  of  the  Synoptic  materials.  It  is  ut- 
terly different  in  character  and  viewpoint,  which  leads 
us  to  ask,  Is  John  moving  in  another  field  entirely,  or 
is  he  giving  us  a  new  set  of  facts?  Is  it  body  versus 
body,  or  body  versus  spirit  that  must  guide  us  in  in- 
terpreting this  document?  Probably  the  latter.  Was 
it  written  by  a  disciple  of  Jesus,  namely  the  Apostle 
John,  as  the  traditionalists  and  conservatives  main- 
tain? Let  us  examine  the  document  critically  and 
analytically,  and  then  draw,  if  we  can,  an  unbiased 
conclusion.  If  Mark's  Gospel,  which  is  the  basis  of 
the  other  two  Synoptics,  is  the  transscribed  record  of 
an  eye-witness  (the  Apostle  Peter)  of  the  whole  min- 

24 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  25 

istry  of  Jesus,— then  if  the  Fourth  Gospel  is  the  rec- 
ord of  another  apostle  (John)  also  an  eye-witness,  the 
two  must  inevitably  record  the  essential  doctrines  as 
spoken  from  the  lips  of  Jesus  without  any  fundamen- 
tal variance. 

1.  The  Fourth  Gospel  contains  no  parables  (unless 

in  chapter  15  a  somewhat  rarefied  form  of  one). 

2.  It  contains  no  exorcisms  (casting  out  of  devils). 

3.  The  word  "pray"  does  not  occur  in  the  Greek  at 

all,  the  word  "talk"  being  used  throughout. 

4.  The  word  "preach"  does  not  occur. 

5.  The  word  "gospel"  nowhere  occurs. 

6.  The  noun  "hope"  does  not  occur. 

7.  The  word  "wisdom"  is  never  used. 

8.  The  word  "faith"  is  never  used. 

9.  There  is  no  concept  of*  "serving"  or  "service." 

10.  There  is  no  reference  of  sympathy  for  the  "poor" 

(rather  the  opposite:    see  John  12:5-8). 

11.  "Love"  occurs  seven  times  as  a  noun,  but  only 

in  the  sense  of  affection  for  personal  friends  or 
acquaintances;  (in  the  Synoptics  this  word  oc- 
curs but  once :  Jesus  "loved"  the  Rich  Young 
Ruler). 

12.  The    word    "know"    (gnosco)    occurs    fifty-five 

times,  and  is  made  the  sole  basis  of  salvation. 

13.  The  word  "believe"  occurs  ninety-nine  times  and 

is  made  the  sole  basis  of  salvation. 
(If   the    reader   will    go    through    the    Gospel 
carefully    and    underline    this    word    and    its 
grammatical  variations  with  red  ink,  he  will 
have  the  key  as  to  the  interpretation,  purpose, 


26  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

and  the  nationality  of  its  author  disclosed,  as 
will  be  pointed  out  presently). 

14.  The  word  "Messiah"  in  this  Gospel  is  not  Jew- 

ish in  scope,  but  means  simply  *'Son  of  God." 

15.  There  is  no  baptism  unto  remission  of  sins. 

16.  John  the  Baptist  is  merely  called  John. 

17.  There  is  no  Sermon  on  the  Mount. 

18.  The  Synoptics  have  an  open-air,  outdoor  land- 

scape and  atmosphere  of  bird,  tree,  flower, 
grain,  sheep,  oxen,  sunset:  but  John  is  aca- 
demic and  intellectual  in  tone. 

19.  Moreover,    the    audience    and    spectators    upon 

whose  ears  his  messages  fall  and  before  whose 
eyes  his  deeds  are  performed  is  not  the  Synop- 
tic audience  of,  publican,  sinner,  harlot,  Sad- 
duccee,  widow,  scribe,  or  child:  the  auditors, 
environment,  words,  works,  are  all  different. 
The  audience,  in  fact,  is  commonly  referred  to 
as  *'the  Jews," — surely  a  strange  and  unnec- 
essary designation. 

20.  With  the  possible  three  exceptions  of  the  mir- 

acles of  the  Loaves  and  Fishes,  Walking  on 
the  Water,  and  the  Healing  of  the  Nobleman's 
Son,  the  miracles  performed  in  the  Fourth 
Gospel  are  not  mentioned  in  the  Synoptics. 

21.  In  the  Fourth  Gospel  Jesus  speaks  a  new  mes- 

sage, uses  a  new  vocabulary,  and  assumes  a  new 
attitude  toward  mankind.  He  is  not  a  Galilean 
Jesus  or  a  missionary  to  the  Jews,  but  their 
antagonist  in  attitude  and  language. 

22.  In  the  Fourth  Gospel,  Jesus,  in  violent  contrast 

to  his  Synoptic  attitude,  rebukes  people  who 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  27 

want  miracles  performed  (e.  g.  his  mother  at 
Cana,  3:4;  the  Nobleman,  4:48;  the  sisters  of 
Lazarus,  11:40).  On  the  other  hand  he  vol- 
unteers to  perform  them  without  being  re- 
quested (e.  g.  the  Lame  Man  at  the  Pool  of 
Bethesda,  5:6;  Feeding  the  Multitude,  6:5; 
the  Blind  Man,  9:3).  They  are  not  acts  of 
pity,  but  proofs  of  his  own  deity  and  divinity. 
Natural  affection  is  practically  trodden  upon. 
In  other  words,  whereas  in  the  Synoptics  the 
cure  is  made  dependent  on  faith,  in  the  Fourth 
Gospel  faith  is  made  dependent  on  the  cure, — 
a  complete  reversal  of  the  process. 

23.  The  Jesus  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  is  largely  self- 

centered,  egocentric.  There  is  little  or  no 
kingdom  of  God  or  brotherhood  of  man  doc- 
trine. The  phrase  "the  kingdom  of  God"  or 
"of  heaven"  occurs  fifty-five  times  in  Matthew ; 
if  the  Fourth  Gospel  was  written  by  a  disciple 
of  Jesus,  how  could  he  ignore  the  central  doc- 
trine of  Jesus  in  the  first  three  Gospels? 

24.  In   the   Fourth   Gospel  Jesus   is   ever  talking  of 

himself  and  his  peculiar  relationship  to  man 
and  to  God.  He  is  primarily  "the  expounder 
of  his  own  person."  In  fact,  the  pronoun  "ego" 
in  Greek  occurs  one  hundred  and  fifty-five 
times  apart  from  the  verb  in  this  document. 
In  the  Synoptics  it  is  nearly  always  included 
in  the  first  personal  conjungation  of  the  verb 
in  Greek,  as  it  also  nearly  always  is  in  the  Latin 
language. 

25.  Dealing  further  with  this  peculiar  egoism  of  the 


28  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

Fourth  Gospel,  we  have  the  seven  great  "I 
Am's"  (John  6 :  35  ;  8 :  12 ;  10:7;  10:11;  1 1 :  25  ; 
14:6;  15:  I ).  These  are  plainly  allegories  used 
instead  of  parables  in  Jesus*  debates  with  the 
Jews. 

26.  In  the  Fourth  Gospel  there  is  no  communion- 

service  or  "eating  of  flesh"  in  the  Synoptic  or 
Jewish  sense. 

27.  Jesus  washes  his  disciples'  feet  AFTER  supper 

instead  of  before  (13:4,  5),  a  violation  of  the 
Oriental  custom. 

28.  There  is  no  Transfiguration  story. 

29.  There  is  no  doctrine  of  the  Second  Coming. 

30.  There  is  no  Garden  of  Gethsemane  story. 

31.  Salvation  is  not  based  on  the  death  of  Jesus,  as 

is  the  theology  of  Paul  and  the  Synoptic  writ- 
ers, but  upon  the  life  of  Jesus. 

32.  Righteousness  is  not  in  doing,  as  in  the  Synop- 

tics, but  in  believing  and  accepting.  Con- 
versely, Sin  consists  in  disbelief  and  ignorance. 

33.  Salvation  comes  through  knowledge  and  accept- 

ance. 

34.  Judgment  is  present,  according  to  this  Gospel, 

not  future  (12:  31). 

35.  The  Fourth  Gospel  is  a  gospel  of  a  few  great 

ideas  which  are  flung  at  the  reader  again  and 
again :  Incarnation,  Regeneration,  Revelation, 
and  Illumination.  The  Incarnation  of  the  pro- 
logue represents  Jesus  as  the  goal  of  Greek 
philosophy.  The  divine  Logos  has  been  em- 
bodied in  human  life.  It  is  not  the  death  but 
the  life  of  Jesus  that  is  the  source  of  salvation : 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  29 

it  is  the  communication  of  life  to  life,  the  con- 
tagion of  life. 

36.  John's  Gospel  is  an  attempt  to  marry  reason  and 
revelation,  and  an  effort  to  relate  faith  (relig- 
ious experience)  to  knowledge  (experience  in 
the  world,  or  in  externalities). 

37'  The  Fourth  Evangelist  has  a  dual  conception  of 
the  character  of  Jesus  which  he  keeps  in  ad- 
mirable balance:  (i)  Metaphysical,  or  the  pre- 
existent,  supernatural,  incarnated  Jesus;  and 
(2)  the  religious  Jesus,  who  brings  life  to  men. 

38.  It  will  be  seen  from  (31)  to  (37)  inclusive,  above, 

that  these  concepts  are  typically  Greek,  not 
Jewish.  The  perfunctory  reader  of  this  Gospel 
may  be  startled  to  discover  that  it  is  a  deliber- 
ate, splendid  effort  to  do  away  with  the  neces- 
sity of  a  Judaistic  conception  of  salvation,  or 
rather,  becoming  a  Christian  through  a  Juda- 
istic entrance  to  Christianity. 

39.  Finally,  as   Professor  Bacon  says,   "The  whole 

group  of  Johannine  literature  combats  Doke- 
tism,  an  obnoxious  form  of  Gnostic  heresy 
which  sprang  up  at  the  end  of  the  first  cen- 
tury, repudiating  the  historicity  of  Jesus,  and 
stigmatizing  his  whole  career  as  a  phantasm 
(dokesis).  First  and  Second  John  (the  Epis- 
tles) openly  denounce  Doketism,  while  the 
Gospel  of  John  shows  opposition  to  it  only  in 
the  more  careful  statement  of  the  Evangelist's 
exact  meaning."  ^ 

tt\^-o^  Bacon    "The  Making  of  the  New  Testament"  (Henry 
Holt  &  Co.,  1912),  p.  23,  et  seq. 


30  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

40.  Professor  E.  F.  Scott,  of  New  York,  the  leading 

modern  authority  on  this  Gospel  and  its  inter- 
pretation, defines  it  as  "an  effort  to  translate 
Christianity  into  Greek  terms,  and  to  trans- 
plant Christianity  into  Greek  thought." 

41.  Turning  from  the  contents  of  the  Fourth  Gospel 

which  we  find  to  be  theological  rather  than 
biographical  or  historical,  to  its  form,  again 
we  discover  startling  differences  between  it 
and  the  Synoptics,  or  Jewish  literature  in  gen- 
eral. It  is  highly  significant  to  note  that  in 
form  it  is  mainly  dialogue.  Here,  the  life  of 
Jesus  will  bear  an  analogy  to  that  of  Socrates 
as  far  as  their  biographers  are  concerned,  Xeno- 
phon's  "Memorabilia"  being  the  Synoptic  life 
of  Socrates,  and  Plato's  "Dialogues"  being  the 
Johannine  version. 

42.  Some  authors  conceive  the  Fourth  Gospel  to  be 

modelled  after  a  Greek  drama;  the  curtain 
rising  on  the  wild  ravines  of  the  Jordan  River, 
after  the  Heavenly  prologue  has  been  given, 
presenting  the  rugged  figure  of  the  Baptist, 
who  announces  himself  merely  as  a  passing 
character,  and  his  ministry  as  a  transitory 
event,  compared  to  that  which  is  to  follow. 
The  hero  (Jesus),  his  followers,  and  his  vil- 
ainous  opponents  (the  Jews)  who  are  ever 
conspiring  against  his  life,  lurking  back  in  the 
shadows  of  the  stage,  and  emerging  finally  vic- 
torious (the  Crucifixion),  after  repeated  and 
humiliating  defeats,  comprise  the  dramatic  tri- 
angle. 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  31 

Did,  then,  the  Apostle  John  write  the  Fourth  Gos- 
pel in  accordance  with  ancient  tradition?  The  pre- 
sumption is  strongly  against  such  a  belief.  The  docu- 
ment is  unmistakably  Greek  in  thought,  language, 
tone,  and  form.  With  the  Apostle  John  as  author,  as 
Bacon  says,  it  is  necessary  to  suppose  that  John,  after 
migrating  to  Ephesus,  underwent  a  transformation  so 
complete  as  to  make  him  in  reality  another  man ;  and 
to  attribute  to  this  Galilean  peasant  an  extreme  degree 
of  Philonic  abstraction."  ^  Compare,  for  instance, 
Jesus'  intercessory  prayer  of  John  17  to  the  Lord's 
Prayer  in  length,  practicality,  and  ethical  content. 
Another  serious  objection  to  the  traditional  Johannine 
authorship  is  to  be  found  by  appealing  to  the  Synop- 
tics for  information  concerning  the  Apostle  John,  who 
has  been  somewhat  dubiously  identified  with  the  "Be- 
loved Disciple"  of  the  Fourth  Gospel.  Mark  3:17 
identifies  James  and  John,  the  sons  of  Zebedee  and 
Salome,  as  being  surnamed  by  Jesus  as  Boanerges, 
"Sons  of  Thunder,"  because  of  their  fervor  and  elo- 
quence. In  Luke  9 :  54,  55,  a  fiery,  impetuous,  revenge- 
ful spirit  is  shown,  somewhat  inconsistent  with  the 
clinging  vine  disciple  of  John  13 :  23,  who  appears  for 
the  first  time  only  during  the  last  twenty-four  hours 
of  the  life  of  Jesus.  More  serious  than  these  two  in- 
stances, however,  is  the  implication  of  Matthew  20: 
20-23,  which  his  readers  gathered  as  fact  by  reading 
between  the  lines,  that  James  and  John  did  not  long 
survive  Jesus  in  this  earthly  life. 

Inadvertently,  John  21 :  24  refers  to  the  authorship 

1  Ibid  :    pp.  212-213, 


32  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

of  the  Fourth  Gospel  by  the  pronoun  "we,"  using  the 
Beloved  Disciple  as  a  literary  tool,  much  as  Koheleth 
used  Solomon  as  a  poetic  monologuist  in  writing  the 
book  of  Ecclesiastes.  This  form  of  pseudonymity  was 
a  common  literary  device  of  the  ancient  world.  Says 
John  21 :  24  in  part,  "And  we  (the  Ephesian  editors, 
pupils,  and  successors  of  the  Beloved  Disciple)  know 
that  his  (the  Beloved  Disciple^s)  testimony  is  true." 
The  difficulty  of  identifying  the  author  is  of  the  book's 
own  creation,  somewhat  purposely,  we  suspect. 

Let  us  hear  the  conclusion  of  the  whole  matter.  The 
Fourth  Gospel  is  a  restatement  of  Christianity  in 
Greek  terms,  for  Greeks,  and  by  Greeks.  This  fact  in 
nowise  impairs  or  reduces  its  religious  value  and  im- 
portance. It  is  not  the  author  of  the  book  but  the 
book  itself  that  counts.  Martin  Luther  has  said: 
"Whatever  preaches  Christ,  that  is  apostolic,  be  it 
Judas,  or  Annas,  or  Pilate,  or  Herod;  and  whatever 
preaches  not  Christ  is  not  apostolic,  be  it  Peter,  or 
James,  or  John,  or  Paul." 

The  best  consensus  of  ancient  tradition  and  modern 
scholarship  fixes  the  date  of  the  document  as  probably 
no  A.  D. 


PART  I :    APPENDIX  A.    THE  NEW  TESTA- 
MENT MANUSCRIPTS 

Where  do  we  get  the  original  text  of  our  New  Tes- 
tament? There  are  in  existence  three  very  ancient 
manuscripts  which  answer  this  question  for  us.  They 
are: 

I.  The  Vatican  Manuscript.  This  most  ancient 
of  manuscripts  has  lain  for  five  centuries  in 
the  Vatican  at  Rome,  and  is  one  of  the 
precious  treasures,  of  course,  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church.  For  hundreds  of  years  the 
popes  of  Rome  forbade  scholars  to  examine 
it.  Pope  Pius  IX,  however,  one  of  the  most 
liberal  pontifical  authorities,  finally  ordered 
fac-similes  made  of  it,  which  are  now  in  the 
greater  public  libraries  of  all  the  world.  The 
Vatican  Manuscript  is  a  vellum  folio  about 
a  foot  square,  containing  between  600  and 
700  leaves,  each  page  having  three  columns ; 
and  the  text  is  Greek,  printed  in  capital  let- 
ters throughout  without  spacing  the  words, 
which  makes  it  difficult  to  read.  Of  the  New 
Testament  text,  Mark  16:9-20  is  missing  in 
the  original,  although  a  spurious  version  is 
given,  marked  in  the  margin  as  doubtful 
(this  is  the  primitive  Gospel  account  of  the 
33 


34  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

Resurrection  of  Jesus)  ;  and  all  the  text  after 
Hebrews  9:  14  is  gone. 

n.  The  Sinaitic  Manuscript.  This  manuscript  was 
discovered  in  May,  1844,  by  Constantin 
Tischendorf,  a  great  German  scholar,  in  St. 
Catherine's  Convent  at  the  base  of  Mt. 
Sinai,  whither  he  had  gone  on  a  research 
mission.  The  monks  refused  to  allow  him 
to  carry  away  more  than  a  leaf  or  two  out 
of  the  basket  of  old  manuscripts ;  and  for 
over  fifteen  years  he  strove  vainly  to  get 
permission  and  assistance  in  getting  pos- 
session of  these  precious  documents.  Fin- 
ally, in  1859,  he  received  authority  from  the 
Emperor  of  Russia,  and  recovered  the  manu- 
scripts, which  at  last  accounts  were  in  the 
Library  of  Petrograd.  In  this  document 
again  Mark  16:  9-20  is  missing.  It  has  four 
columns  to  a  page. 

III.  The  Alexandrian  Manuscript.  This,  the  young- 
est of  the  three  major  manuscripts,  was  pre- 
sented to  Charles  I  in  1628  by  the  Patriarch 
of  Constantinople,  seventeen  years  too  late 
to  be  of  service  in  the  King  James  Version 
of  161 1.  It  has  two  columns  to  a  page,  and 
much  of  the  materials  are  missing  or  de- 
fective. 


PART    II 


JESUS  AND  THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD 


II.   JESUS  AND  THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD 

I.  The  Birth  of  Its  Founder. — Jesus,  who  is  com- 
monly called  the  Christ,  was  born  in  Bethlehem  of 
Judea,  a  tiny  village  about  six  miles  southeast  of 
Jerusalem.  The  exact  date  of  his  birth  is  altogether 
uncertain,  but  by  almost  universal  traditional  agree- 
ment it  has  been  set  at  December  25,  6  or  4  B.  C.  The 
father  of  Jesus  (Luke  2:48)  was  Joseph,  a  poor  car- 
penter of  Nazareth  in  Galilee,  and  through  him  the 
first  and  third  Gospel  writers  trace  back  the  ancestry 
of  Jesus  (Matt.  1:1-16;  Luke  3:23-38).  His  mother 
was  Mary,  an  attractive  but  humble  and  devout  wo- 
man, and  Jesus  was  her  first-born  son  (Luke  2:7), 
the  eldest  of  a  family  which  was  to  comprise  at  least 
four  more  sons,  James,  Joseph,  Simon,  and  Jude,  and 
two  or  more  sisters  (Matt.  13:55,  56;  Mark  6:3). 
The  parents  of  Jesus  were  in  Bethlehem  at  the  time 
of  his  birth  to  pay  a  poll-tax  exacted  from  Jewish 
subjects  by  Augustus  Caesar,  emperor  of  Rome  31 
B.  C.-14  A.  D.  In  conformity  with  an  ancient  Jewish 
custom  the  tax  was  paid  not  in  the  regular  place  of 
residence,  but  in  the  town  where  one's  ancestors  had 
originally  lived  as  members  of  the  twelve  tribes  of 
Israel.  Thus  Jesus  was  born  near  the  spot  where  his 
distinguished    ancestress,    Ruth,    was    wed    to    Boaz 

37 


38  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

(Ruth  4:  10),  and  where  his  regal  forbear,  David,  kept 
his  father  Jesse's  sheep  a  thousand  years  before  (I 
Sam.  16:  11).  Due  to  the  congestion  in  the  inn  at 
Bethlehem,  Jesus  appears  to  have  been  born  in  a 
nearby  limestone  cavern  which  served  as  a  stable,  in 
a  rude  trough  from  which  horses,  camels,  and  mules 
were  fed, — a  fact  curiously  prophetic  of  a  life  which 
was  to  be  lived  through  its  all  too  brief  span  in  de- 
mocracy and  poverty.  Many  beautiful  traditions  have 
clustered  about  the  birth  of  the  Founder  of  Christian- 
ity, some  of  which  have  been  recorded  by  the  Gospel 
writers,  among  them  being  the  chorus  of  the  heavenly 
host,  the  appearances  of  angels  to  persons  most  im- 
mediately concerned,  and  the  doctrine  of  the  virgin 
birth ;  but  it  must  be  recalled  in  this  connection  that 
the  writers  of  the  Gospel  narratives  lived  in  an  ancient 
Jewish  atmosphere  of  angelology  and  demonology, 
and  have  recorded  what  they  believed  at  the  time  to 
have  been  literal  fact.  In  the  references  previously 
noted  it  will  be  observed  that  nowhere  does  the  New 
Testament  disavow  that  Joseph  was  not  really  the 
father  of  Jesus. 

2.  The  Ancestry  of  Jesus. — In  modern  times  science 
has  been  exploring  the  domain  of  heredity,  genetics, 
and  eugenics  with  eminently  successful  results.  The 
study  of  man's  life  is  no  longer  complete  without  some 
knowledge  of  his  ancestral  influences.  The  well- 
known  studies  of  the  Edwards,  Jukes,  and  Kallikak 
families  has  revealed  the  fact  that  "good  blood"  and 
''bad  blood"  are  realities, — that  not  only  physical  traits 
but  mental  characteristics  and  moral  tendencies  are 
passed  down  from  one  generation  to  the  next.     In  a 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  39 

very  literal  manner  the  sins  of  the  parents  are  visited 
on  the  children  to  the  third  and  fourth  generation,  but 
fortunately  so  are  their  virtues.  It  is  not  so  hard  to 
explain  the  apparent  enigma  of  Abraham  Lincoln  when 
v^e  discover  that  one  of  his  progenitors  v^^as  a  grad- 
uate of  Harvard  College,  and  another  a  judge  in  the 
Massachusetts  courts.  Jesus  of  Nazareth  was  derived 
from  the  best  line  of  ancestry  that  the  world  has  ever 
known.  Among  the  members  of  his  family  tree  were 
Enoch,  Methuselah,  Noah,  Shem,  Abraham,  Isaac,  Ja- 
cob, and  Judah,  according  to  Luke's  genealogy ;  and 
Boaz  and  Ruth,  David,  Solomon,  Asa,  Jehosaphat, 
Zerubbabel,  and  Amos  and  Nahum,  according  to  Mat- 
thew's. The  discrepancy  in  the  two  genealogies  after 
David  has  been  named  in  each  has  never  been  satis- 
factorily explained,  but  doubtless  one  or  the  other  is 
inaccurate.  Kings,  priests,  pioneers,  statesmen,  schol- 
ars, and  prophets  and  poets  are  among  the  celebrities 
numbered  in  the  family  history  of  Jesus.  From  Ruth 
may  he  not  have  inherited  the  determination  to  "set 
his  face  steadfastly  toward  Jerusalem"  (Luke  9:51)? 
From  Abraham  "who  went  out,  not  knowing  whither 
he  was  going,  to  look  for  the  city  which  has  founda- 
tions, whose  builder  and  maker  is  God,"  that  scorn  of 
"safety  first"  embodied  in  the  words,  "If  any  man  will 
come  after  me,  let  him  deny  himself,  and  take  up  his 
cross  and  follow  me"  and  "For  whosoever  will  save 
his  life  shall  lose  it"  (Matt.  16:25,  26)? 

3.  The  Life  of  Jesus  Prior  to  His  Ministry. — The 
sentence  of  premature  death  was  passed  upon  Jesus 
in  less  than  twenty-four  hours  after  his  birth.  Of  the 
group  that  gathered  around  the  infant  in  the  first  week 


40  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

of   his   life,    the   shepherds,    Simeon,   Anna,   and   the 
scholars  from  the  East,  came  to  bless  and  wish  him 
well,  but  as  in  the  story  of  the  sleeping  princess,  there 
came  also  one  sinister,  malignant  face  masked  with 
hypocritical  cunning  to  curse  and  to  ruin.     In  a  con- 
vulsion of  anxiety  the  parents  of  Jesus  fled  precipi- 
tately into  Egypt,  where  possibly  they  may  have  had 
relatives,  and  returned  to  Nazareth  only  after  having 
ascertained  that  all  danger  was  past,  for  Herod  died 
soon  after  their  flight.     At  Nazareth  Jesus  lived  in 
obscurity  and  poverty,  obtaining  the  synagogue  edu- 
cation of  his  station  in  life,  and  working  at  the  car- 
penter's bench  with  his  father.     Every  Jewish  boy 
must  learn  a  manual  trade  irrespective  of  his  academic 
training,  and  everywhere  in  his  language  Jesus  betrays 
a   working-class   consciousness.     After   the   only   re- 
corded incident  of  his  youth  (Luke  2:41-52),  it  seems 
that  Joseph  died,  leaving  to  his  eldest  son  the  task 
of  supporting  his  mother  and  the  rather  large  family 
of  brothers  and  sisters.    Until  he  was  thirty  years  old, 
Jesus  must  have  labored  long  and  well  at  the  car- 
penter's trade,  and  frequently  in  his  later  precepts  he 
uses   the  argot  of  the   craft.     He  became   a   horny- 
handed  workman.     It  was  his  lot  to  go  into  the  hills 
around  Nazareth,  to  hew  down  the  mighty  trees,  cut 
them  into  beams,  and  haul  or  drag  them  back  to  the 
shop.     He  made  the  rude   furniture,  the  plows,   the 
yokes,  the  coffins,  the  cradles,  the  cabinets,  the  boxes 
and  the  stools  used  in  that  day.    He  used  the  ax,  the 
mallet,  the  chisel,  the  adz,  and  the  plane.    There  was  a 
mother  dependent  upon  him  and  hungry  brothers  and 
sisters  to  be  fed.    To  these  years  antedating  his  min- 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  41 

istry  the  Gospel  writers  pay  little  or  no  heed.  But 
the  language  of  his  active  career  reveals  his  occupa- 
tion and  rural  environment.  We  find  such  expressions 
as,  "Take  my  yoke  upon  you"  (Matt.  11 :  29,  30)  ;  ''No 
man,  having  put  his  hand  to  the  plough"  (Luke  9:  62)  ; 
"Come  unto  me,  all  ye  that  labour  and  are  heavy- 
laden,  and  I  will  give  you  rest"  (Matt.  11:28);  'The 
labourer  is  worthy  of  his  hire"  (Luke  10:7);  *'The 
harvest  is  plenteous,  but  the  labourers  are  few"  (Matt. 
9:37;  Luke  10:2);  "Went  out  early  in  morning  to 
hire  labourers"  (Matt.  20:  i);  "The  burden  and  heat 
of  the  day"  (Matt.  20:  12);  "Built  his  house  upon  a 
rock"  (Matt.  7 :  24) ;  "Which  of  you  intending  to 
build"  (Luke  14:28);  "This  man  began  to  build,  and 
was  not  able  to  finish"  (Luke  14:30);  "I  will  pull 
down  my  barns  and  build  greater"  (Luke  12:18). 
References  to  green  wood  and  to  dry  (Luke  23:31), 
hewing  down  trees  for  firewood  (Matt.  7:19;  Luke 
3:9;  John  15:6),  to  mending  old  garments  (Matt.  9: 
16),  and  to  moth  and  rust  (Matt.  6:  20)  are  significant 
of  these  years.  They  are  the  words  of  a  strong  man, 
whom  a  violent  storm  could  not  awaken  as  he  lay 
asleep  in  an  open  boat  (Mark  4:38).  Best  of  all  are 
those  magnificent  words  which  are  a  challenge  to  every 
idler  and  parasite  in  the  world:  "My  Father  worketh 
hitherto,  and  I  work  ...  I  must  work  the  works  of 
him  that  sent  me  while  it  is  day,  for  the  night  cometh 
when  no  man  can  work"  (John  5 :  17  and  9:4). 

4.  The  Ministry  of  John  the  Baptizer. — John  the 
Baptizer  was  a  first  cousin  of  Jesus,  and  was  born  six 
months  before  the  latter,  probably  in  Juttah,  "a  city 
in  the  hill-country  of  Judea,"  in  southernmost  Pales- 


42  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

tine,  near  Hebron  (Luke  1:39,  57).  As  he  grew  to 
manhood,  John  left  the  home  of  his  father,  Zacharias, 
and  dwelt  a  solitary  hermit  in  the  wilderness  of  Judea 
along  the  northern  edge  of  the  Dead  Sea  (Luke  i :  80). 
In  his  dress  this  rugged,  sun-bronzed  recluse  imitated 
Elijah  (H  Kings  1:8),  and  for  food  ate  locusts  and 
wild  honey,  a  primitive  diet  similar  to  that  still  in- 
dulged in  by  some  Asiatic  peoples.  Here  in  the  soli- 
tary wilderness,  under  a  sky  copper-colored  by  day- 
time with  the  air  full  of  a  quivering,  invisible  tropic 
flame,  and  by  night  companioned  by  the  desert  stars 
which  globed  themselves  one  by  one  in  the  heavens 
like  great  balls  of  fire  suspended  in  a  purple  vault, 
John  lived  in  solemn  communion  with  nature  and  the 
God  of  nature.  About  him  were  great  ledges  of 
scarred  rock  upon  which  the  viper's  brood  nestled ; 
the  deep  ravine  of  the  Jordan  extended  to  the  north ; 
and  at  his  feet  lay  the  leaden,  bitter-alkali  waters  of 
the  Dead  Sea,  the  lowest  spot  in  the  world.  It  is  vir- 
tually impossible  to  explain  the  revelation  of  God  to 
John  without  coming  to  believe  that  it  was  made  in 
part  through  the  medium  of  nature.  The  very  frag- 
ments of  sermons  of  his  which  are  preserved  to  us 
reflect  the  landscape  of  the  wilderness  in  which  he 
lived  and  moved  and  had  his  being:  the  viper's  brood 
fleeing  before  the  fires  which  at  times  consumed  the 
vegetation  (Luke  3:7);  the  precipitous  gashes  in  the 
rocks,  the  pathless  ways  neither  straight  nor  smooth 
under  foot  (Luke  3:5);  the  blasted  tree  (Luke  3:9); 
the  rocks  over  which  he  had  trod  these  many  years 
(Luke  3:8).  John  the  Baptizer  was  a  child  of  na- 
ture; he  was  not  a  product  of  the  educational  and  ec- 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  43 

clesiastical  influences  of  his  time ;  he  was  in  every  re- 
spect a  "free  lance."  Doubtless  the  parents  of  John 
had  often  talked  to  him  in  childhood  and  youth  of  the 
angelic  visitation  which  was  the  prologue  to  his  birth, 
and  of  the  mission  which  had  been  mapped  out  for  him 
when  he  lay  in  the  cradle.  Naturally,  when  the  voice 
of  the  strange,  fiery,  impetuous  preacher,  with  his  wild, 
hermit-like  appearance,  his  bronzed,  weather-beaten 
countenance  and  unshorn  hair,  began  to  echo  back  and 
forth  from  the  scarred  cliffs,  flinty  boulders,  and  frown- 
ing ledges  of  the  Jordan  canyon,  Palestine  was  elec- 
trified from  center  to  circumference.  As  Lange  has 
said:  "He  was  like  a  burning  torch,  and  his  public 
life  was  like  an  earthquake."  Great  crowds  thronged 
from  all  parts  of  Palestine  to  see  and  hear  the  wonder- 
ful preacher,  who  like  General  William  Booth,  "lashed 
with  burning  words  the  enemies  of  God."  According 
to  the  Fourth  Gospel,  a  deputation  of  Pharisees  was 
sent  from  the  authorities  in  Jerusalem  in  view  of 
John's  tremendous  popularity,  to  require  him  to  es- 
tablish his  identity  as  a  prophet.  To  these  he  gave 
contemptuous  attention,  and  their  ultimate  report 
seems  to  have  been  :  "He  hath  a  devil !"  (Matt.  1 1 :  18). 
John's  great  message  was  also  electrical :  the  long 
looked  for  kingdom  of  God  promised  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment scriptures  was  about  to  appear;  the  vicegerent 
of  God  who  was  to  usher  it  in  was  about  to  appear; 
the  preparation  to  enter  the  kingdom  must  include 
repentance  for  past  sins  to  be  evidenced  by  a  symbolic 
application  of  water  or  washing  in  the  River  Jordan, 
the  outward  sign  of  an  inward  cleansing,  known  as 
"baptism."     Because  of  this  brand  new  symbol  which 


44  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

he  had  introduced,  John  was  known  as  the  "Baptizer" 
or  ''Baptist." 

5.     The  Temptation  of  Jesus:  A  Modern  Conception 
of  the  Devil. 


When  the  news  of  John  his  cousin's  preaching 
reached  up  into  Nazareth  of  Galilee,  Jesus  the  car- 
penter recognized  the  signal,  and  knew  that  his  hour 
had  struck.  Laying  aside  his  leathern  apron  and  his 
rule,  the  adz  and  the  plane,  he  left  the  home  in  which 
he  had  spent  the  thirty  years  of  his  life  (Luke  3:23), 
and  joined  the  vast  throngs  which  gathered  near  the 
Dead  Sea  basin.  In  the  course  of  time  he  submitted 
himself  to  John  as  a  candidate  for  baptism.  His  cou- 
sin was  thunderstruck  at  the  request.  "You  are  the 
one  of  whom  I  have  been  told  all  my  life,"  said  he, 
in  effect ;  "if  that  is  true,  it  would  be  better  for  you  to 
baptize  me,  than  the  reverse."  Jesus  insisted  upon 
undergoing  the  rite,  in  this  manner  setting  a  laudable 
example  to  his  future  followers,  and,  should  he  be 
accepted  by  his  people,  to  acknowledge  thus  publicly 
the  genuineness  of  John's  mission  as  a  prophet.  From 
his  baptism,  in  which  he  was  publicly  proclaimed  by 
John  as  the  Messiah  who  was  to  usher  in  the  kingdom 
long  expected,  Jesus  retired  into  the  wilderness  to 
ponder  his  future  public  course  of  action,  much  as 
Paul  retired  into  Arabia  after  his  conversion  to  plan 
his  program  of  action  (Gal.  i :  17)  before  attempting 
it.  The  temptation  of  Jesus  is  still  naively  interpre- 
ted by  our  traditionalist  commentators,  because  the 
equally  naive  Gospel  writers  give  it  in  dialogical  form. 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  45 

— a  drama  spoken  by  two  human  actors  in  actual  phys- 
ical speech.     Mark  only  gives  one  verse  to  the  temp- 
tation of  Jesus,  and  does  not  state  of  v^rhat  the  temp- 
tation  consisted.     Matthew  and   Luke  are  more   ex- 
plicit.   Where  did  they  get  their  apparent  stenographic 
report    of   the    conversation    between   Jesus   and   the 
"devil"?    Obviously,  it  is  Q  material,  and  if  authentic, 
Jesus  himself  must  have  told  it  later  to  his  friends 
and  followers.     What  were  the  temptations?     They 
were  auto-suggestions  that  he  introduce  himself  to  the 
public  in  harmony  with  the  prevailing  and  popular  con- 
ceptions of  what  the  Jewish  people  expected  the  Mes- 
siah to  be.    They  expected  a  military  Messiah,  a  knight 
clad  in  glittering  armor  on  a  prancing  warhorse,  to 
come,  to  raise  an  army  to  follow  his  standard,  to  over- 
throw the   despotism   of  the   Roman   empire,   and   to 
make  Jerusalem  the  capital  of  the  world.     The  three 
temptations   given   in   Matthew's   order  were   respec- 
tively:   (a)  a  selfish  Messiahship;   (b)  a  spectacular 
Messiahship;  and   (c)  a  secular,  or  non-religious,  or 
military,   or   despotic,    Messiahship.     Should   he   cast 
himself  from  a  pinnacle  of  the  temple  and  seek  to  awe 
the  people  by  this  startling  feat?     Should  he   enter 
Jerusalem  with  red  fire,  a  brass  band,  a  flying  squad- 
ron, an  imposing  equipage  of  followers,  a  flag-bedecked 
retinue,  and  all  the  other  accessories  of  political  tri- 
umph?    Should  he  seek  to  conquer  the  world  at  the 
point  of  the  sword,  as  Mohammed  later  strove  to  do, 
and  having  conquered,  convert?    The  third  temptation 
as  given  by  Matthew  finds  a  precise  counterpart  in  the 
effort  of  the  last  Kaiser  of  Germany  to  vanquish  all 
the  nations  of  the  earth  first,  and  impose  kultur  upon 


46  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

them  as  a  condition  of  peace.  That  Jesus  pushed  aside 
all  these  suggestions  proves  his  sanity,  poise,  and 
common  sense, — that  he  was  a  man  for  the  ages.  Not 
by  revolution  but  by  evolution,  not  by  social  and  po- 
litical upheaval,  but  by  silent  transformation,  was  the 
method  ultimately  decided  upon  by  Jesus.  That  there 
was  a  physical  devil  present  is  purely  a  primitive  be- 
lief, and  is  preposterous  from  the  modern  point  of  view. 
That  Jesus  was  tempted  similarly  many  times  after- 
ward is  evident  by  comparing  Matt.  4:  10  with  Matt. 
16:23,  and  from  passages  like  Matt.  16:1-5;  26:68; 
and  2y :  40-43. 

6.  The  Kingdom  of  God. — It  will  be  observed  that 
this  general  division  of  the  study  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment may  be  called  problems  of  the  life  of  Jesus.  At 
this  point  in  our  discussion,  if  we  are  following  pre- 
eminently a  scientific  method,  we  may  as  well  frankly 
admit  that  further  progress  is  impossible  in  a  truly 
accurate  biography  of  Jesus.  The  facts  of  his  life  are 
professedly  fragmentary,  occasional,  and  not  in  chron- 
ological order  in  the  Synoptics,  and  it  is  folly  to  en- 
deavor to  rearrange  them  in  a  manner  which  purports 
to  be  historically  final  and  unimpeachable.  The  fate 
of  the  life  of  Jesus  was  transference  of  the  facts  of  his 
career  by  a  generation  or  two  of  oral  tradition  from 
ear  to  ear,  mouth  to  mouth,  and  life  to  life,  until  the 
accretions  were  permanently  recorded  as  "facts."  His 
brief  span  of  life  and  the  slender  means  at  his  disposal 
to  accomplish  his  purposes,  naturally  cause  problems 
to  arise  in  his  life  and  to  remain.  We  have  no  phono- 
graphic or  motion  picture  records  of  his  life;  and  it  is 
grotesque  to  withhold  from  a  study  of  the  historic 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  47 

phenomena  of  the  New  Testament  our  learning,  sci- 
ence, and  art,  as  has  long  been  done.  What  did  Jesus 
set  about  to  accomplish  in  his  brief  span  of  life?  What 
central  idea  occupied  his  mind?  Does  a  reading  of 
the  Synoptics  reveal  the  latter?  If  so,  will  not  a  scien- 
tific approach  to  the  New  Testament  documents  neces- 
sarily concern  itself,  not  with  a  futile  endeavor  to  re- 
arrange the  chronological  details  of  the  life  of  Jesus, 
but  with  what  that  life  in  its  recorded  fragments  sought 
to  achieve?  With  such  a  program,  the  biographical 
details  become  secondary  as  they  should  be ;  for  it  will 
be  recalled  that  the  four  Gospels  are  primarily  the 
precepts  of  Jesus  with  only  incidental  reference  to  the 
historical  circumstances  under  which  they  were  ut- 
tered. A  reversal  of  the  process  leads  to  hopeless  con- 
fusion, or  has  to  date,  and  to  endless  academic  dis- 
sension and  historical  speculation. 

The  phrases  "The  kingdom  of  God"  or  "of  heaven" 
are  expressions  which  occur  in  one  form  or  the  other 
122  times  in  the  four  Gospels.  Of  these,  55  are  found 
in  Matthew,  19  in  Mark,  44  in  Luke,  and  4  in  the 
Fourth  Gospel.  Usually  these  expressions  fall  from 
the  lips  of  Jesus.  This  idea  was  not  invented  by  the 
religious  genius  of  Jesus,  but  was  inherited  by  him 
from  the  history  and  prophecy  of  his  race.  It  was  a 
hope  born  of  the  centuries  of  Israel's  wanderings  and 
sufferings  as  a  nation :  to  Isaiah  and  Jeremiah  the 
Kingdom  hope  was  spiritual;  to  the  New  Testament 
age  it  was  .materialistic,  military,  and  worldly,  and 
hardly  to  be  ushered  in  by  a  humble  carpenter  from 
the  backwoods  district  of  Galilee, — a  man  not  bred  in 
the  priestly  circles  of  the  nation.     The  kingdom   of 


48  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

God  as  promulgated  by  Jesus  and  promised  by  him 
and  John  the  Baptizer  is  not  clearly  defined  anywhere 
in  the  New  Testament.  Jesus  nowhere  describes  the 
kingdom  of  God,  mainly  because  it  was  a  national 
hope,  not  in  any  respect  new,  and  because  his  hearers 
understood  what  he  meant  by  the  expression.  The 
kingdom  of  God  was  to  be  a  Golden  Age  for  the  Jewish 
nation,  but  beyond  that  opinions  differed  as  to  what 
would  characterize  it.  To  some  it  meant  universal 
worship  of  God  on  earth,  and  in  the  Lord's  Prayer, 
Jesus  advances  this  conception  of  it.  To  others  it 
meant  a  reign  of  justice,  with  every  man  under  his 
own  vine  and  fig-tree  in  peace,  prosperity,  and  con- 
tentment. Some  considered  Satan  as  reigning  on 
earth,  and  God's  promised  reign  not  yet  precisely  and 
exclusively  operative,  and  therefore  to  them  it  meant 
the  kingship  of  God  on  earth  as  in  heaven.  Some 
thought  that  God  would  herald  his  coming  on  earth 
to  reign  over  or  among  men  by  a  prophet  of  the  type 
of  Elijah.  The  transcendent  God,  remote  and  pure,  it 
was  believed  would  need  an  agent,  a  proxy,  a  vice- 
gerent, a  delegate,  a  Messiah,  to  destroy  the  old  world 
order;  hence  "Messiah"  became  inevitably  associated 
with  a  military  significance  in  the  popular  mind.  The 
military  Messiah  coming  in  shining  armor  as  represen- 
tative of  the  Most  High  God  would  do  away  com- 
pletely with  poverty,  sickness,  sin,  and  Roman  des- 
potism. Now  the  fact  is  that  Jesus  constantly  said, 
"The  kingdom  of  God  is  at  hand,"  and  in  his  failure 
(as  he  determined  resolutely  not  to  do  in  his  personal 
struggles  with  temptation)  to  bring  it  to  pass  visibly 
and  materially  before  the  eyes  of  his  fellow-country- 


1 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  49 

men,  he  was  a  bitter,  and  to  many  a  blasphemous,  dis- 
appointment. He  had  presumed  to  be  the  Messiah; 
but  he  had  failed  to  upset  the  old  order  of  things  as 
far  as  could  be  seen.  Does  this  help  us  to  understand 
the  bitterness  behind  the  cry,  "Crucify  him"?  More- 
over, Jesus  teaches  the  kingdom  as  a  future  state,  to 
come  within  the  lifetime  of  that  same  generation 
(Mark  13:30),  and  often  speaks  of  "receiving  it"  or 
"entering  into  it,"  as  does  nearly  all  the  New  Testa- 
ment. But  one  cannot  give  any  calculating  or  pre- 
monitory signs  of  its  coming  as  he  can  predict  the 
coming  of  a  storm  by  the  clouds  and  lightning  (Luke 
17:  20-24) ;  and  it  will  be  bad  news  for  some,  for  some 
will  always  be  on  the  wrong  side  of  the  door  (Matt. 
25 :  10).  In  his  delineation  of  the  establishment  of  the 
kingdom  of  God  on  earth,  Jesus  used  invariably  one 
constant  figure  of  speech  to  characterize  its  relation- 
ships,— that  of  the  human  family.  His  favorite  anal- 
ogy was  the  Household  of  God.  God  is  a  Father ;  men 
are  his  children;  therefore,  men  are  all  brothers  and 
should  conduct  themselves  as  such;  and  God  loves 
and  forgives  his  children  as  a  kind  earthly  father 
would  do  (Luke  15:11-32)  if  man  will  reciprocate 
this  affection  and  obey  Him.  The  human  family  was 
the  nearest  comparison,  or  metaphor,  that  Jesus  could 
conceive,  to  make  plain  to  his  fellow-countrymen  the 
coming  divine  order  on  earth  which  it  had  become  his 
task  to  reveal. 

7.  The  Constitution  of  the  Kingdom  of  God  (Mat- 
thew 5,  6,  7:  The  Sermon  on  the  Mount). — Probably 
early  in  his  ministry  Jesus  promulgated  the  Great 
Manifesto  of  the  New  Freedom,  the  Sermon  on  the 


50  THE  CONTENTS  OF  XHE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

Mount.  This  may  or  may  not  have  been  uttered  in  its 
totality  in  a  single  address.  Matthew  tends  to  ar- 
range his  Q  materials  topically  rather  than  chrono- 
logically (e.  g.,  he  groups  the  parables  by  the  lakeside, 
Matt.  13,  in  a  single  unit  of  material),  which  must 
leave  forever  uncertain  their  time  order  and  relation- 
ships. Luke's  version  of  the  Sermon  (Luke  6:20  on) 
contains  only  thirty  verses  as  over  against  the  one 
hundred  seven  of  Matthew,  and  introduces  nothing 
new  save  the  "four  woes"  (Luke  6:24-26).  The  Ser- 
mon on  the  Mount  should  be  studied  clause  by  clause 
as  the  Constitution  of  the  Kingdom  of  God.  It  is  a 
sort  of  spiritual  autobiography  of  Jesus,  and  reveals 
a  religious  genius  of  such  high  order  as  the  world  has 
never  seen  before  or  since.  The  preamble  of  this  con- 
stitution is  comprised  of  eight  so-called  beatitudes, 
the  first  of  which  being  the  one  from  which  the  seven 
following  evolve.  The  second,  fourth,  and  sixth  beati- 
tudes deal  with  man's  inner  life  toward  God,  while 
the  third,  fifth,  seventh,  and  eighth  deal  with  man's 
life  as  it  should  be  manifested  in  its  outward  relation- 
ships toward  one's  fellow-man.  Matthew  5 :  13-20  are 
critical  and  diplomatic  assertions.  Jesus  makes  it 
plain  that  he  believes  that  the  Jews  are  indeed  the 
salt  which  is  to  preserve  the  world  from  spiritual  de- 
cay, and  the  light  which  is  to  shine  in  the  world-wide 
darkness  of  heathenism,  provided  they  do  not  lose 
sight  of  their  high  religious  mission.  Moreover,  he 
explicitly  declares  that  he  has  not  come  to  destroy  the 
law  or  the  prophets  of  the  Old  Testament,  but  to  give 
them  their  true  spiritual  fulfilment.  Jewish  Chris- 
tians, in  fact,  are  to  observe  the  inner  meaning  of  those 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  51 

teachings  even  more  scrupulously  than  the  scribes  and 
Pharisees  (Matt.  5:20).  Jesus  then  proceeds  to  state 
what  he  considers  the  inner  reality  of  certain  typical 
commandments  handed  down  by  Moses.  The  Law  of 
Murder  is  revised  to  extend  to  the  feelings  which  in- 
spire murder,  as  well  as  to  the  committing  of  the  deed ; 
the  Law  of  Adultery  to  thoughts  of  evil;  the  Law  of 
Oaths  to  every  kind  of  foolish  and  needless  oath.  The 
Law  of  Retaliation,  having  been  a  relic  of  a  more 
primitive  and  barbarous  day,  is  now  unnecessary  to 
preserve  the  safety  of  the  community,  and  is  abolished : 
and  there  is  suggested  in  its  stead  a  law  of  self-re- 
straint and  self-discipline  to  the  furthest  endurable 
limit.  In  fact,  perfection  itself  should  be  the  goal  of 
the  spiritual  life  (Matt.  5:48).  All  Christian  acts, — 
prayer,  fasting,  alms,  the  exercise  of  talents  (Matt.  7 : 
6),  seeking  higher  and  nobler  ideas  {7 '.7),  the  choice 
of  teachers  (7:15),  and  all  forms  of  active  service 
(7:21), — must  be  done  solely  with  reference  to  the 
love  of  God,  and  not  for  personal  publicity.  The  man 
or  woman  who  takes  heed  of  these  lessons  has  built 
his  life  upon  a  solid  foundation,  which  the  winds  and 
storms  of  adversity  can  never  shake  (7 :  24,  25). 

8.  The  Lord's  Prayer:  A  Modern  Conception  of 
Prayer. — In  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  Jesus  taught 
his  disciples  a  model  prayer.  It  was  short  and  to  the 
point,  involving  a  few  big  principles  of  prayer  as  he 
conceived  them.  When  praying,  we  should  recognize 
God  ("Our  Father")  first  of  all,  for,  as  the  author  of 
the  Letter  to  the  Hebrews  remarks,  "For  he  that 
Cometh  to  God  must  believe  that  God  exists"  (Heb. 
11:6).     Secondly,  a  spirit  of  reverence  is  essential  in 


52  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

prayer  ("Hallowed  be  thy  name").  Thirdly,  we  are 
to  pray  for  the  kingdom  of  God  to  come  on  earth, — 
to  pray  for  our  community,  state,  and  nation, — before 
praying  for  ourselves  ("Thy  kingdom  come").  Fourth- 
ly, personal  needs  are  secondary  to  the  broader  needs 
of  the  world  and  humanity  at  large  ("Give  us  this 
day,"  etc.).  Last  of  all,  we  should  pray  to  acquire 
strength  actively  to  resist  all  temptation,  but  once 
being  in,  to  be  delivered  from  the  same  ("And  forgive 
us  our  shortcomings,  as  we  also  forgive  those  who 
have  failed  in  their  duty  toward  us").  In  modern 
times,  is  prayer  becoming  a  lost  art?  If  fewer  people 
pray  today  than  formerly,  why  should  it  be  so?  Jesus 
believed  in  the  efficacy  of  prayer.  What  is  prayer? 
Is  it  long-distance  communication  with  God?  Emer- 
son defines  prayer  as  looking  at  the  facts  of  life  from 
the  highest  point  of  view.  What  value  has  prayer  in 
modern  life?  These  are  perplexing  questions  to  many 
of  the  younger  generation.  If  prayer  is  unpopular, 
wherein  does  the  difficulty  lie?  We  believe  it  to  be 
due  to  misconceptions  or  to  outworn  conceptions  of 
the  true  nature  and  function  of  prayer  in  the  lives  of 
men.  If  we  continue  to  look  at  prayer  as  supernatural, 
long-distance  communication,  we  have  a  singularly 
unscientific  and  valueless  conception.  Emerson  must 
have  been  right  in  his  summary  of  the  nature  and 
function  of  prayer.  If  we  eliminate  the  supernatural 
element  in  prayer,  we  at  once  find  something  strangely 
electric,  vital,  and  compelling.  Prayer  assumes  a  new 
function  and  aspect.  Let  us  consider  briefly  a  modern 
conception  of  praying: 

(a)  Prayer,  when  one  stands  on  his  feet  and  offers 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  53 

sincere,  straightforward,  impelling  words  of  faith  and 
optimism,  is  a  heroic,  and  not  a  flabby  affair. 

(b)  Prayer  keeps  us  sensitive  to  the  higher  ethical 
influences  of  life. 

(c)  Prayer  makes  us  constantly  take  measure  of 
ourselves  and  others  by  our  highest  ideals. 

(d)  Prayer  thus  strengthens  one's  forces  for  seem- 
ingly insurmountable  tasks. 

(e)  Prayer  inspires  the  spirit  of  reverence  for  God, 
for  humanity,  and  for  the  works  of  God :  "for  what  is 
over  us,  for  what  is  around  us,  and  for  what  is  under 

us."  .     ,.^ 

(f)  Prayer  is  the  greatest  refining  mfluence  m  life. 
It  should  be  an  expression  of  the  genuine  fibre  of  life, 
not  artificial  or  assumed,  not  inflated  or  bombastic, 
not  sentimental  or  sickly  and  pale. 

With  these  points  in  mind,  let  us  consider,  for  prac- 
tical purposes  as  well  as  to  show  further  the  nature 
and  function  of  true  prayer  in  modern  life,  some  "do's" 
and  "don't's"  which  apply  to  prayer. 

I.  First,  let  us  consider  prayer  negatively.  The 
negative  treatment  will  serve  two  purposes :  first,  to 
show  why  prayer  tends  to  become  unpopular ;  second, 
to  show  one  how  to  avoid  pitfalls  in  praying. 

(a)  Do  not  pray  lengthy  prayers.  Wordy,  long 
prayers  weary  an  audience  rather  than  key  it  up. 
Remember  that  the  Lord's  Prayer  is  a  model  from  the 
standpoint  of  brevity.  A  certain  church  has  recently 
published  a  volume  of  "One-Minute  Prayers."  Three 
minutes  is  an  excellent  average  length  for  a  prayer. 

(b)  Do  not  pray  prayers  of  flattery  and  adulation  of 
God.    Do  not  fill  a  prayer  with  "soft  soap." 


54  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

(c)  Do  not  pray  vociferously,  as  though  God  were 
deaf.  Battering  the  throne  of  grace  is  a  physical  rather 
than  a  spiritual  exercise. 

(d)  Do  not  pray  dismal  prayers.  Sin,  sickness, 
death,  and  misfortune  are  indeed  facts  to  be  faced,  but 
not  unduly  dwelt  upon  or  minutely  dissected  under 
the  circumstances  of  prayer. 

(e)  Do  not  pray  the  sentimental,  sickly  humility 
type  of  prayer.  SENTIMENTALITY  IS  THE 
DEADLIEST  OFFENSE  AGAINST  PRAYER. 

(f)  Do  not  pray  for  suspension  of  the  laws  of  na- 
ture, or  for  miracles. 

(g)  Do  not  pray  retaliative  prayers.  "Praying  at" 
one's  audience  is  extremely  unethical. 

(h)  Do  not  pray  selfish,  egocentric  prayers,  or  eth- 
nocentric prayers. 

(i)  Do  not  imagine  that  posture  is  an  essential  to 
successful  prayer.  The  Jew  prayed  standing  up 
(Luke  i8:  ii). 

(j)  Do  not  pray  bombastic,  inflated,  egotistic  pray- 
ers to  demonstrate  one's  command  of  language  or  elo- 
cutionary ability. 

II.  Second,  let  us  consider  prayer  positively  and 
constructively,  as  a  vital,  impelling  life-force. 

(a)  Pray  briefly. 

(b)  Pray  hopeful,  optimistic  prayers  for  the  most 
part. 

(c)  Pray  thoughtfully  and  reflectively,  weighing  one's 
words. 

(d)  Pray  with  frankness,  sincerity,  and  straight- 
forwardness. 

(e)  Pray  always  earnestly. 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  55 

(f)  Pray  aspiring,  constructive  prayers. 

(g)  Pray  to  God  as  vital  and  near  at  hand,  in  the 
same  room  (Acts  17:27,  28). 

(h)  Pray  first  for  others,— for  the  needs  of  the  com- 
munity and  the  world. 

(i)  Pray  for  the  multiplication  of  one's  own  en- 
ergies. 

(j)  Pray  to  be  of  greater  service  in  the  world, — to 
be  useful  in  the  world,  and  not  a  parasite  or  a  worm. 

(k)  Pray  more  preventive  and  fewer  curative  pray- 
ers, remembering  the  old  adage. 

(1)  Use  the  Lord's  Prayer  as  a  model  prayer,  "the 
pearl  of  prayers,"  the  little  white  paternoster,  as  Victor 
Hugo  has  termed  it. 

9.  The  Promotion  of  a  Spiritual  Kingdom. — One  of 
the  first  acts  of  Jesus  as  teacher  was  the  organization 
of  a  select  group  of  disciples,  twelve  in  number,  who 
with  a  careful  intensive  training  from  him  might  spread 
with  a  minimum  of  confusion  and  misconception,  the 
doctrine  of  the  kingdom  of  God.  When  the  disciples 
finally  became  apostles  (i.  e.,  active  workers  instead 
of  mere  learners,  Matt.  10:  i,  2),  they  paired  off  in  an 
interesting  manner  after  the  ancient  custom  of  Jewish 
rabbis,  who  traveled  in  pairs  in  order  to  discuss  the 
Law  with  one  another.  The  two  brothers  Peter  and 
Andrew  went  together ;  James  and  John,  also  brothers, 
known  as  Boanerges  (Matt.  3:17)  from  the  fervor 
and  intensity  of  their  dispositions ;  Philip  and  his 
friend  Bartholomew  (Nathanael:  John  i :  43) ;  "doubt- 
ing" Thomas  and  shrewd  Matthew,  both  of  a  practical 
trend  of  mind;  James  and  his  brother  Jude  (Thaddeus, 
or  Lebbaeus),  of  whom  we  know  almost  nothing;  and 


56  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

Simon  the  Zealot  (or  Canaanite),  an  anti-Roman  poli- 
tician and  schemer,  and  Judas  Iscariot,  treasurer  of 
the  apostolic  group,  and  a  still  darker  plotter  than  his 
companion.  That  these  pupils  never  fully  learned  that 
Jesus  conceived  the  kingdom  of  God  to  be  spiritual 
instead  of  w^orldly  is  evident  from  Matthew  20 :  20-28, 
Luke  24:  21,  and  similar  passages.  That  the  people  at 
large  never  conceived  Jesus  as  a  Messiah,  never  asso- 
ciating a  humble  carpenter  with  that  exalted  position, 
is  evident  in  Matt.  16:14,  21:11,  Luke  24:19,  John 
18 :  33,  and  Acts  2 :  22. 

10.  Christianity  as  a  Religion  of  Adventure. — Under 
no  consideration  did  the  Prophet  of  Nazareth  ever 
assert  that  Christianity  would  ever  be  anything  else 
than  a  religion  of  challenge  and  risk  until  the  kingdom 
of  God  was  firmly  established  on  earth.  Nothing  could 
be  more  fatal  to  Christianity  than  to  have  it  lose  its 
spirit  of  pioneering  and  achievement.  A  nursing-bot- 
tle Christianity  will  never  appeal  to  the  spirit  of  youth. 
Youth  cries  out  for  adventure,  and  to  the  extent  that 
this  element  is  missing  in  religion,  just  to  that  extent 
will  it  lose  its  influence  in  young  lives.  Jesus  never 
taught  for  a  single  minute  that  his  religion  was  to  be 
a  tranquil,  stay-at-home,  "safety-first"  brand.  A  cer- 
tain scribe  once  came  to  him,  and  said,  "Master,  I  will 
follow  you  wheresoever  you  go."  And  Jesus  replied, 
"Foxes  have  dens,  and  birds  have  nests,  but  the  Son 
of  Man  has  nowhere  to  lay  his  head."  Another  of 
his  disciples  said  to  him:  "Sir,  permit  me  first  to  go 
and  bury  my  father."  "Follow  me,"  was  the  answer, 
"and  leave  the  (spiritually)  dead  to  bury  their  (physi- 
cal) dead!"  (Matt.  9:  19-22).    The  whole  of  Matthew 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  57 

10  is  a  forecast  of  the  baptism  of  blood  and  tears  Chris- 
tianity must  undergo  from  a  misunderstanding  and 
"let-well-enough-alone"  world.  "I  am  come,"  said 
Jesus,  "not  to  send  peace,  but  a  sword"  (Matt.  10: 
34).  "He  that  loves  father  and  mother  more  than  me 
is  not  worthy  of  me ;  and  he  that  loves  son  or  daugh- 
ter more  than  me  is  not  worthy  of  me.  He  that  is  un- 
willing to  take  up  his  cross  and  follow  me  is  not  worthy 
of  me.  He  that  saves  his  life  shall  lose  it;  and  he 
that  loses  his  life  for  my  sake  shall  find  it"  (Matt. 
10:37-39).  There  is  nothing  namby-pamby  about  a 
religion  of  grim  possibilities  like  this.  While  teaching 
his  message  publicly  on  a  certain  occasion,  his  mother 
and  brothers  stood  at  the  edge  of  the  crowd,  desiring 
to  speak  to  him.  Someone  told  him,  "Your  moth^ 
and  your  brothers  stand  without,  and  desire  to  speak 
to  you."  "W^ho  is  my  mother,"  asked  Jesus  of  his 
informant,  "and  who  are  my  brothers  ?"  and  pointing  to 
his  disciples  he  added,  "Behold  here  my  mother  and 
my  brothers ;  for  whosoever  shall  do  the  will  of  God, 
that  is  my  brother,  my  sister,  and  my  mother !"  (Matt. 
12:46-50).  Something  of  his  sternness  of  doctrine  is 
indicated  also  by  Matt.  15:  14  and  26.  In  Matthew  16 
are  repeated  some  of  the  admonitions  of  Chapter  10: 
"If  any  man  will  come  after  me,  let  him  deny  himself 
and  take  up  his  cross,  and  follow  me.  For  whosoever 
shall  save  his  life  shall  lose  it;  and  whosoever  shall 
lose  his  life  for  my  sake  shall  find  it.  For  what  shall 
it  profit  a  man,  if  he  shall  gain  the  whole  world  and 
lose  his  own  soul?  or  what  shall  a  man  give  in  ex- 
change for  his  soul  ?"  (Matt.  16 :  24-26).  To  the  mother 
of  James  and  John  he  asked :   "Are  your  sons  able  to 


58  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

drink  of  the  cup  (of  martyrdom)  that  I  shall  drink  of, 
and  be  baptized  with  the  baptism  (of  blood)  that  I  am 
baptized  with?"  (Matt.  20:23).  Upon  their  affirma- 
tion that  they  were  able,  he  responded :  "The  greatest 
person  of  all  is  he  who  serves  his  fellow-men  the  most." 
The  rich  young  ruler  wanted  to  do  some  one  heroic 
thing  by  which  he  could  win  eternal  life,  and  Jesus 
gave  it  to  him, — of  selling  his  possessions,  taking  up 
his  cross,  denying  himself,  and  becoming  an  active  pro- 
moter of  the  kingdom  like  the  rest  of  the  disciples. 
The  offer  was  refused,  because  the  risk  seemed  too 
great  to  the  mind  of  one  nurtured  in  luxury.  The 
flaming  denunciation  of  the  Pharisees  in  Matthew  23 
gives  evidence  of  great  virility  and  courage  on  the 
part  of  Jesus.  It  would  be  well  for  the  New  Testa- 
ment reader  to  read  the  Synoptics  to  notice  the  calls 
to  service,  self-denial,  and  spiritual  warfare  and  its 
incident  physical  anguish  and  hardships ;  and  the  caus- 
tic comments  of  Jesus  upon  the  faithlessness,  perver- 
sity, blindness,  and  self-sufficiency  of  his  own  genera- 
tion. Jesus  had  no  use  for  hypocrisy,  sham,  and  a 
religion  of  externals  and  make-believe.  He  had  no 
patience  with  the  ridiculous  Blue  Law  Sabbath  which 
prohibited  a  man  from  very  sensibly  rescuing  live 
stock  from  unfortunate  accidents  (Matt.  12:  11),  from 
preparing  food  for  one's  self  and  friends  if  hungry 
(12:3,  4),  and  from  relieving  physical  distress  (Matt. 
12:  10-13),  on  the  Sabbath  Day.  The  doctrine  of  un- 
washed hands  meant  nothing  to  him  (15:2-9);  clean 
and  unclean  foods  had  no  spiritual  significance  what- 
ever (15:  11);  the  practice  of  fasting  was  not  incum- 
bent upon  his  disciples  (9 :  14,  15)  ;  to  him  the  condition 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  59 

of  the  heart  was  everything,  and  these  externalities 
nothing  except  as  aids  to  that  condition,  to  be  dis- 
pensed with  easily  were  that  state  of  heart  once  at- 
tained. There  is  nothing  in  the  religion  of  Jesus, 
barring  possibly  his  purely  prescientific  concepts,  such 
as  angelology  and  demonology,  that  conflicts  with 
sanity  and  common  sense.  Religion  to  Jesus  meant 
aspiration  and  attainment  through  self-sacrifice  and 
suffering;  the  Cross  looms  up  forever  as  the  emblem 
of  personal  sacrifice  to  the  last  degree, — the  laying 
down  of  one's  life  for  an  ideal.  This  was  the  ideal  of 
the  Pilgrim  Fathers  who  settled  America  in  1620.  OF 
them  F.  G.  Peabody  has  well  said :  "Not  to  play  safe, 
but  to  face  risks  for  a  great  cause ;  not  to  save  life  in 
England,  but  to  lose  it  in  the  wilderness ;  not  to  cling 
passively  to  the  Cross  of  Christ,  but  to  take  up  their 
own  cross  and  carry  it, — such  were  the  marks  of  the 
Pilgrim  character.  .  .  .  Religion  to  them  had  its  own 
limitations  of  form  and  doctrine,  but  it  was  funda- 
mentally chivalric,  venturesome,  courageous;  not  the 
religion  of  the  stay-at-home,  but  the  religion  of  the 
adventurer."  ^  Such,  indeed,  was  the  spirit  of  the 
founders  of  Christianity.^ 

II.  The  Miracles  of  Jesus:  A  Modem  Conception 
of  Miracles. — The  ancient  world  at  the  time  the  New 
Testament  was  written  had  not  evolved  the  modern 
scientific  concept  of  nature  as  a  causal  nexus  (chain) 
of  interrelated  laws,  governed  by  the  relationship  of 
cause  and   effect.     Modern   science   teaches   that   for 

1  New  York  "Times,"  October  17,  1920. 

2Bunyan's  conception  of  the  Christian  life  in  'Tilgrim's 
Progress"  as  a  series  of  struggles  is  quite  in  harmony  with  that 
of  Jesus. 


6o  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

every  phenomenon  or  "effect"  in  nature  there  must 
have  been  a  cause,  however  obscure  and  puzzling  the 
latter  may  seem  to  us.  We  no  longer  look  at  big  phe- 
nopiena  as  "supernatural"  in  origin,  but  somewhere 
as  the  effects  of  certain  definite,  scientific  causes.  For 
instance,  it  was  formerly  believed  that  the  thunderclap 
and  stroke  of  lightning  were  the  anger  of  God  or  of  a 
god,  but  modern  physics  teaches  that  these  phenomena 
are  the  effects  caused  by  the  collision  of  two  masses 
of  vapor,  one  charged  with  positive,  the  other  with 
negative,  electricity ;  and  that  in  any  case  the  collision 
is  purely  accidental.  Therefore,  if  any  "miracle"  can 
be  explained  from  natural  causes,  it  at  once  ceases  to 
be  a  "miracle,"  and  is  deprived  of  any  supernatural 
significance.  Most  people  today  do  not  believe  in 
miracles  in  general,  but  in  THE  miracles,  a  traditional 
list  of  which  happened  within  a  limited  time  and  within 
a  limited  locality.  If  miracles  are  met  with  outside 
of  the  Bible,  as  for  instance  in  the  Apocrypha  or  Lives 
of  the  Saints,  they  are  not  believed  by  modern  minds 
even  on  their  own  merits.  Moreover,  in  any  case. 
Biblical  or  otherwise,  we  are  confronted  not  by  mira- 
cles themselves,  but  by  miracle-narratives.  The  Ger- 
man writer  Lessing  once  said,  "Accounts  of  miracles 
are  not  miracles."  The  problem  of  miracle-analysis 
is  as  much  ancient,  and  therefore  prescientific,  mira- 
cle-report, as  it  is  miracle  event.  Miracles  are  common 
in  all  ancient  writings,  and  are  not  peculiar  to  the 
Bible.  We  can  readily  believe  the  miracles  of  the 
New  Testament,  however,  if  we  are  willing  to  apply 
to  them  modern  scientific  tests.  It  must  always  be 
borne  in  mind  that  they  are  recorded  by  writers  in  a 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  6i 

prescientific  age,  and  that,  as  Bowen  remarks,  "There 
was  no  electric  light  in  Peter's  cabin  in  Galilee." 

In  speaking  of  the  miracles  peculiar  to  the  New 
Testament,  it  is  well  to  bear  in  mind  the  following 
facts : 

(i)  The  word  "miracle"  nowhere  occurs  in  the 
Greek  of  the  New  Testament,  nor  does  the  Avord 
"supernatural"  or  its  equivalents  or  cognates.  The 
three  Greek  words  unfortunately  uniformly  translated 
"miracle"  are:  (a)  "teras,"  meaning  "prodigy"  or 
"wonder";  (b)  "semeion,"  meaning  "sign"  or  "signifi- 
cant event,"  as  the  "sign  of  the  prophet  Jonah";  and 
(c)  "dunamis,"  meaning  "power,"  or  a  one-man  ability, 
as  in  healing-power. 

(2)  The  miracles,  if  they  were  supernatural  events, 
are  insufficient  to  keep  Judas  from  betrayal,  Peter  from 
denial,  or  the  Jews  from  plotting  against  the  life  of 
Jesus. 

(3)  Miracles  are  never  used  as  evidence  in  behalf 
of  the  claims  of  Jesus,  who  himself  refused  to  work 
signs  and  wonders  (Matt.  16:1),  or  to  come  down 
from  the  cross.  They  are  homiletic,  not  evidential; 
they  are  used  to  teach  lessons  of  faith ;  they  are  "acted 
parables"  in  many  instances, — as  for  instance  in  the 
cases  of  the  gratitude  of  the  Samaritan  leper,  the  still- 
ing of  the  tempest,  and  cursing  of  the  fig-tree,  etc. 

(4)  The  disciples  of  Jesus  are  given  power  to  per- 
form miracles  the  same  as  Jesus  (Matt.  10:  1-8;  Mark 
6:  13;  Acts  5:  15,  16),  and  Jesus  said,  "Greater  works 
than  these  shall  ye  do"  (John  14:  12). 

(5)  Many  miracles  are  recorded  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment other  than  those  of  Jesus.     For  instance,  Paul 


62  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

(Acts  14:3,  8-10;  19:11,  12;  20:12),  and  Peter  (Acts 
3;  9:40,  41).  The  New  Testament  makes  no  distinc- 
tion between  the  miracles  of  Jesus  and  those  of  his 
disciples. 

(6)  The  miracles  of  Jesus  are  NEVER  alluded  to  by- 
Paul,  who  strains  the  Old  Testament  scriptures  to 
prove  Jesus  the  Messiah,  but  who  never  calls  in  the 
miracles  of  Jesus  as  evidence  of  the  fact.  The  miracles 
of  Jesus  had  a  negligible  influence  apparently  on  the 
succeeding  generation. 

There  are  forty-one  miracles  in  the  Four  Gospels, 
with  fifteen  supplemental  miracles  wrought  ON  Jesus. 
Another  scholar  lists  thirty-six.  The  so-called  "mirac- 
ulous draught  of  fishes"  is  probably  not  a  miracle,  for 
travelers  tell  us  that  the  density  of  shoals  of  fishes  at 
times  cannot  be  conceived,  covering  often  an  acre  on 
the  surface  of  the  Lake  of  Galilee.  A  famous  traveler, 
Captain  Wilson,  says  one  shot  from  his  revolver  killed 
three.  Bowen  estimates  the  actual  number  of  miracles 
at  twenty-three,  not  admitting  the  *'signs"  of  the 
Fourth  Gospel,  which  is  not  considered  an  historical 
presentation  of  the  life  of  Jesus.  These  twenty-three 
may  be  grouped  conveniently  into  four  divisions : 

I.  Demonology  (5). 

n.  Healing  the  sick  (12). 

in.  Restoring  the  dead  (2). 

IV.  Nature-miracles  (4). 

I.    Demonology  "miracles." 

These  twenty-three  Synoptic  "miracles"  (although 
the  New  Testament  does  not  refer  to  them  as  such  or 
as  supernatural  in  any^  manner),  we  shall  now  discuss 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  63 

in  some  detail,  following  Mark's  original,  primitive, 
unvarnished  account  wherever  possible  as  the  basis 
of  our  discussions. 

1.  The  demoniac  in  the  synagogue  at  Capernaum: 

Mark  i :  23-28 ;  Luke  4 :  33-37- 

2.  The    Gadarene   and   the   swine:    Mark    5:1-20; 

Matt.  8;  Luke  8. 

3.  The    Canaanite    woman's    daughter:     Mark    7; 

Matt.  15. 

4.  The  epileptic  boy:    Mark  9;  Matt.  17;  Luke  9. 

5.  The  dumb  demoniac:    Luke  11;  Matt.  9  and  12. 
These  five  problems  can  all  be  discussed  under  one 

head  because  of  their  similarity.  All  persons  in  New 
Testament  times  having  some  obscure  mental  or  nerv- 
ous disorder  without  an  accompanying  organic  defect, 
uniformly  had  their  cases  crudely  diagnosed  as  "de- 
mon-possession." Jesus  believed  in  demon-possession 
(Mark  9:28-29  and  Matt.:  7-22);  so  did  his  disciples; 
so  did  the  authors  of  the  New  Testament  documents ; 
so  did  people  universally.  The  demons,  or  devils,  were 
supposed  to  be  hiding  among  the  rocks  and  tombs, 
and  in  out  of  the  way  places,  ever  on  the  lookout  to 
enter  the  human  body.  They  obstructed  sight,  hear- 
ing, speech,  thoughts,  and  actions ;  they  inhibited  bod- 
ily functions ;  they  rendered  their  victims  ceremonially 
unclean.  In  China  vestiges  of  this  belief  still  persist; 
tonsilitis  is  alleged  to  come  from  devil-inhabited  ton- 
sils, and  the  tonsils  are  seared  with  a  red-hot  iron 
when  swollen  and  diseased  to  drive  out  the  devils.  A 
curious  fact  in  Mark  5  is  the  fact  that  the  victim 
dwelling  among  the  tombs  believed  that  he  had  a  le- 
gion of  devils  in  him,  which  means  6,000  or  up,  on  the 


64  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

basis  of  the  Latin  military  unit.  Moreover,  the  actions 
of  this  victim  were  such  as  to  strike  panic  into  a 
nearby  herd  of  swine,  who  fled  precipitately  down  the 
hillside  into  the  lake  and  were  drowned.  The  gospel 
writers,  writing  from  the  naive  standpoint  of  first 
century  (not  twentieth  century)  men,  and  firmly  be- 
lieving in  demonology,  attributed  the  destruction  of 
the  swine  to  Jesus  directly,  who,  of  course,  was  in- 
directly responsible.  Although  professional  exorcists 
sprang  up  in  multitudes  to  cure  these  unfortunate  af- 
flicted ones  by  means  of  charms,  spells,  herbs,  incan- 
tations, etc.  (see  Tobit  6:16),  it  is  noteworthy  and 
admirable  that  the  Carpenter  of  Nazareth  used  noth- 
ing but  his  personal  authority  and  marvelous  influ- 
ence to  restore  his  patients.  That  vital,  dominant, 
authoritative  personality  with  the  healing  faculty  per- 
vading it  to  an  extraordinary  degree  was  irresistible 
in  its  magnetism.  Many  obsessions  yet  today  can  be 
scared  away  by  a  decisive  personality.  Such  cures 
go  on  today  in  the  clinics  of  modern  psychotherapeutic 
hospitals.  Whether  the  cures  of  Jesus  were  perma- 
nent or  not,  however,  the  New  Testament  does  not 
state. 

II.  Healing  the  Sick. — Of  these  twelve  miracles 
(i)  and  (2)  are  two  cases  peculiar  to  Mark  alone  (7: 
31-37  and  8:22-26),  and  may  be  designated  as  "saliva 
miracles."  It  was  anciently  believed  that  the  saliva 
of  a  holy  or  a  fasting  man  had  highly  curative  prop- 
erties. The  two  miracles  here  mentioned  are  wrought 
by  the  application  of  saliva.  Matthew  and  Luke  use 
every  other  healing  story  of  Mark ;  hence  it  is  entirely 
possible  that  these  two  miracles  are  later  interpola- 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  65 

tions,  and  are  not  authentic  gospel  narratives.  If 
they  are,  it  is  demonstrated  that  Jesus  shared  the  be- 
lief of  his  time  and  country  with  regard  to  the  healing 
properties  of  saliva. 

(3)  and  (4)  contain  two  miracles  given  alone  by  the 
Gospel  of  Luke  (13:11-17  and  14:1-6).  In  the  first 
instance,  that  of  the  woman  bowed  with  infirmity,  two 
things  are  to  be  noted :  first,  verse  14,  which  contains 
total  absence  of  surprise  or  wonder  at  the  miracle; 
and  second,  that  the  emphasis  by  the  gospel  writer  is 
placed  almost  exclusively  on  Sabbath  violation.  In  the 
second,  the  same  things  are  to  be  noted  except  that 
the  ailment  is  stated  to  be  dropsy.  The  healings  here 
are  of  distorted  conditions  of  the  body  rather  than  of 
fevers  or  organic  lesions.  It  has  been  repeatedly 
proved  in  the  modern  world  that  the  former  type  of 
ailment  often  yields  readily  to  suggestion  and  to  con- 
fidence in  the  physician  by  whom  one  is  treated.  Medi- 
cal literature  is  full  of  the  most  extraordinary  cases 
of  psychic  healing.  But  the  point  stressed  by  Luke 
in  each  case  is  the  violation  of  the  Sabbath,  not  the 
physical  relief  of  the  patient ;  nor  is  any  amazement 
manifested  by  the  witnesses  of  the  healing.  In  Luke 
17:  11-19,  the  point  of  the  story  of  the  relief  of  the  ten 
lepers  is  the  gratitude  of  the  Samaritan  leper,  not  the 
fact  that  he  was  healed.  Where  were  the  other  nine 
lepers,  who  were  Jews?  The  moral  pointed  is  similar 
to  that  of  the  Good  Samaritan  parable  (Luke  10). 

(5)  and  (6)  deal  with  the  healing  of  the  centurion's 
servant  (Matt.  8:5-3  and  Luke  7:1-10).  This  is  a 
gospel  point  for  the  Gentiles  wrought  "in  absentia." 
The  fact  that  the  miracle  was  accomplished  at  a  dis- 


66  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

tance,  and  by  absent  treatment,  are  not  the  primary 
factors  here.  The  astonishing  faith  of  the  father,  with 
the  family  probably  sympathetically  co-operating,  in- 
cluding the  sufferer  himself,  wrought  the  cure,  accord- 
ing to  Jesus.  Luke  J :  9  states  that  Jesus  admitted  his 
own  countrymen  and  nationality  had  exhibited  to  date 
no  such  marvelous  faith  in  his  ability  as  a  healer. 

The  remaining  six  of  the  twelve  healings  of  the  sick 
are  found  in  all  three  Synoptics. 

(7)  concerns  the  healing  of  Peter's  mother-in-law 
(Mark  1:29-31;  Matt.  8;  Luke  4).  The  use  of  the 
Greek  present  participle  in  Mark  i :  30,  translated  more 
accurately  "feverish,"  indicates  in  itself  that  the  af- 
fliction was  not  a  malignant  or  bacterial  fever.  The 
healing  is  an  instance  of  simple  invigoration. 

(8)  is  the  famous  story  of  the  withered  hand  (Mark 
3:  1-6;  Matt.  12;  Luke  6).  Here  once  again  the  point 
of  the  miracle  is  the  gospel  one  of  alleged  Sabbath 
desecration,  and  not  the  healing  process  itself.  The 
man's  hand  apparently  was  knotted,  twisted,  or 
dwarfed  by  loss  of  nervous  control  and  will-power,  an 
impediment  which  Jesus  authoritatively  breaks  down 
by  the  sharp  command,  ''Stretch  out  your  hand!" 
(Mark  3:5).  Everyone  knew  what  to  expect — what 
was  coming — including  the  sufferer,  for  it  is  led  up 
to  by  a  preliminary  discussion  concerning  the  observ- 
ance of  the  Sabbath. 

(9)  deals  with  the  woman  with  the  issue  of  blood 
(Mark  5:25-34;  Matt.  9;  Luke  8).  Nowhere  in  the 
New  Testament  is  clearer  light  shed  on  the  miracle 
problem  than  precisely  here.  Jesus  knew  nothing 
about  it  until  it  was  all  over,  and  the  whole  healing 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  67 

process  is  the  direct  result  of  the  patient's  supreme 
conviction  that  she  can  be  healed. 

(10)  deals  Avith  the  picturesque  episode  of  the  para- 
lytic man  lowered  through  the  roof  (Mark  2:1-12; 
Matt.  8;  Luke  5).  Here  again  our  Greek  lexicon 
comes  to  our  aid.  The  Greek  "paralyticos"  means 
oftener  simply  "lamed"  or  "enfeebled"  than  it  does  the 
more  radical  "paralyzed"  or  "palsied."  This  man's 
ailment  was  an  inability  to  use  his  limbs,  and  such 
cases  are  astonishingly  amenable  to  suggestion.  The 
shrines  of  St.  iVnne  de  Beaupre,  Our  Lady  of  Lourdes, 
Trier,  and  Our  Lady  of  Consolation  are  witnesses  of 
numerous  cures  of  invalids  who  came  in  wheel-chairs 
and  on  crutches,  to  go  away  leaving  such  impedimenta 
behind.  People  who  come  long  distances,  at  enorm.ous 
sacrifices,  and  with  faith  and  conviction,  are  particu- 
larly liable  to  cure.  Often  strengthened  faith  and  nerv- 
ous control  was  all  that  was  necessary  for  relief.  In- 
stances are  known  to  medical  science  in  which  para- 
lytics who  had  been  bed-ridden  for  years  and  their 
condition  given  up  as  hopeless,  have  risen  from  their 
couches  of  affliction  when  the  house  caught  fire,  and 
have  run  precipitately  out  of  doors. 

(11)  concerns  leprosy  (Mark  i :  40-45 ;  Matt.  8;  Luke 
5).  Leprosy  is  understood  to  mean  in  modern  times 
a  malignant  destruction  of  the  human  tissues  baffling 
all  medical  power,  and  placing  the  victim  almost  be- 
yond hope  of  physical  salvation,  in  the  terrible  state 
that  Coleridge  has  poetically  designated  "life-in-death 
that  thicks  man's  blood  with  cold."  BUT  BIBLE 
LEPROSY  IS  NOT  THE  MODERN  MALADY.  It 
covers  a  wide  variety  of  contagious  and  defiling  skin 


68  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

affections.  Often  it  was  cured  by  the  passing  of  time, 
so  that  strict  regulation  became  necessary  on  the  part 
of  the  high  priest  or  local  priest,  who  rigidly  examined 
the  cured  one.  What  else  could  Jesus  mean  by  com- 
manding that  the  leper  go  show  himself  to  the  priest 
(Mark  1:44;  Luke  17:14,  etc.)?  Apparently  Bible 
leprosy  was  entirely  curable,  and  after  the  leper  had 
been  quarantined  or  segregated  a  sufficient  length  of 
time  to  become  again  ceremonially  clean,  he  was  read- 
mitted to  social  relationships.  The  trouble  again  has 
been  in  our  too  literal  rendering  of  the  word  "lepra," 
which  means  "scaliness,"  from  "lep,"  a  scale.  This 
word  is  used  in  the  Bible  to  apply  to  leather  articles, 
garments,  and  the  plastering  of  houses  (Leviticus  13 
and  14).  Many  of  these  lepers  came  to  Jesus  for  ex- 
amination as  to  their  ceremonial  cleanliness.  The  road 
to  Jerusalem  was  often  a  long  one,  and  the  practice 
sprang  up  of  the  patient  showing  his  condition  to  the 
local  rabbi.  Jesus,  being  an  unrecognized,  unauthor- 
ized rabbi  by  the  authorities,  always  commanded  them 
to  go  to  the  priest.  In  the  Greek  of  Mark  i :  41,  the 
expression  is  literally,  "Jesus,  snorting  at  him,"  with 
vexation  because  he  had  been  appealed  to  as  the  local 
authority,  rather  than  the  more  dignified  "moved  with 
compassion"  of  the  King  James  translators. 

(12)  and  the  last  typical  healing  miracle  is  that  of 
blind  Bartimaeus  (Mark  10:46-52;  Matt.  20:29-34; 
Luke  18:  35-43).  Matthew  makes  it  "two  blind  men," 
just  as  he  doubles  the  number  of  animals  on  which' 
Jesus  rode  into  Jerusalem.  The  word  "blind"  covers 
a  multitude  of  eye-disorders.  Nervous,  inorganic 
blindness  yields   often   to  medical   treatment  and  to 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  69 

suggestion.  Enthusiasm,  excitement,  shock,  combined 
with  faith,  will  work  wonders  for  the  patient  who 
considers  his  condition  hopeless,  especially  if  it  be  at 
basis  hysterical.  As  far  as  we  know,  the  few  instances 
of  the  blind  receiving  their  sight  again  is  the  type  of 
blindness  here  mentioned.  There  can  be  no  question 
of  Jesus'  healing  power  in  the  absence  of  effective 
materia  medica ;  faith  healing,  focussed  especially  in 
great  religious  personalities,  constituted  about  the 
sole  method  of  true  healing  in  antiquity. 

III.  Restoring  the  Dead — This  kind  of  miracle,  the 
most  marvelous  of  all  in  the  New  Testament  to  the 
traditionalists,  is  the  very  type  of  which  there  are 
more  instances  of  Jesus'  disciples  having  performed  it 
than  of  himself  (e.  g.  Tabitha  by  Peter:  Acts  9:40; 
Eutychus  by  Paul:  Acts  20:9-12;  see  also  Matt. 
10:8). 

I.  The  Raising  of  Jairus'  Daughter  (Mark  5:22- 
43;  Matt.  9:  18-26;  Luke  8:40-56).  This  touching  in- 
cident should  be  read  carefully  in  the  order  of  scrip- 
ture references  above  given.  If  this  is  done,  one  can 
observe  the  tradition  grow  from  Mark  to  Matthew  to 
Luke,  the  last  basing  their  accounts  on  Mark's,  of 
course.  Mark  says  specifically  (5:23)  "at  the  point 
of  death"  in  the  original  account  of  this  miracle  as  he 
had  heard  it  from  the  lips  of  Peter,  who  was  present 
and  witnessed  the  whole  affair  (5 :  37),  and  who  above 
all  others  ought  to  know  the  exact  circumstances. 
Mark  furthermore  records  that  Jesus  himself  remarked : 
"The  girl  is  not  dead,  but  asleep"  (5:39).  Mark  is 
very  careful  to  say  that  those  who  heard  the  words  of 
Jesus  laughed  scornfully  at  the  theory  of  coma  or  un- 


70  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

consciousness.    The  people  thought  she  was  dead.  The 
attending  neighbors  never  thought  for  a   second  of 
revising   their   original   judgment.     They   v^^ere   con- 
vinced in  their  own  minds  that  she  was  dead  and  had 
been   raised   again.     Matthew  and   Luke  record   the 
tradition   in  its   final  form;  but  the  modern  thinker 
must  believe  Mark,  who  writes  accurate,  almost  first- 
hand information  regarding  the  transaction.    It  is  en- 
tirely probable  that  the  girl  was  restored  from  a  state 
of  coma  by  the  Great  Physician.     Paul  raising  Euty- 
chus  is  almost  an  exact  parallel.    The  people  all  said, 
"Eutychus  is  dead"  (Acts  20:9-12),  but  Paul  revised 
their  judgment.    Revival  from  death,  premature  burial, 
and  similar  phenomena  abound  in  literature,  ancient 
and  modern.     Edgar  Allan  Poe  was  notoriously  fond 
of  this  sort  of  pabulum.     One  of  the  victims  of  the 
Lusitania  disaster  of  May,  191 5,  was  revived  from  ap- 
parent "death."    For  several  days  her  body  lay  in  the 
Queenstown  morgue.    She  had  been  pronounced  dead. 
But  she  gradually  became  conscious,  though  totally 
unable  to  move  a  muscle.     When  the  doctors  made 
their  final  trip  of  inspection  among  the  bodies  before 
burial,  this  woman,  who  is  still  living,  managed  to 
flutter  an  eyelid.     She  was  removed  at  once  to  a  hos- 
pital and  gradually  restored  to  life  and  consciousness. 
2.    The   Widow's   Son   of   Nain:     (Luke   7:11-17). 
This  miracle  is  recorded  by  Luke  alone,  and  is  not, 
therefore,  a  part  of  the  usual   trustworthy  tradition 
handed  down  by  Peter.    In  this  hot  climate  burial  was 
speedily  accomplished  (John  11:39).    ^^^  this  instance 
the  widow's  son,  the  question  again  naturally  arises : 
did  the  ancients  discriminate  between  actual  death  and 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  71 

apparent  death?  When  is  the  psychic  element  com- 
pletely severed  from  the  physical?  The  ancients  cus- 
tomarily said  "revival  from  death'^;  moderns  say,  "not 
dead  in  the  first  place,  if  restored."  In  I  Kings  17: 
17-23,  Elijah  restored  a  widow's  son.  Luke  7:  16,  re- 
ferring to  Jesus  as  "a  great  Prophet"  in  this  connec- 
tion shows  that  this  incident  paralleled  almost  exactly 
in  the  minds  of  the  alleged  witnesses  Elijah's  feat. 
II  Kings  4:  32-36  records  the  fact  that  near  the  same 
spot  where  Jesus  raised  the  son  of  the  widow  of  Nain, 
Elisha  also  raised  from  death  the  son  of  the  Shunamite 
widow.  It  is  plainly  apparent  that  a  parallelizing 
tendency  is  at  work  here,  and  all  the  more  from  the 
fact  that  Luke  places  this  miracle  in  an  obscure,  un- 
connected part  of  his  account.  Luke  further  admits 
(4:  25-27)  that  the  Messiah  of  the  Jews,  when  he  was 
come,  was  to  act  similar  to  Elijah  and  Elisha.  It 
must  be  further  remembered  that  Luke,  though  the 
only  evangelist  to  tell  of  this  miracle,  was  not  a  resi- 
dent of  Palestine. 

IV.  Nature  Miracles. — The  four  so-called  nature 
miracles  are  stilling  the  tempest,  walking  on  the  water, 
feeding  the  multitudes,  and  cursing  the  fig-tree. 

(i)  Stilling  the  Tempest  (Mark  4:36-41;  Matt.  8: 
2y2y  \  Luke  8:22-25).  In  this  miracfe-account  it  will 
be  noted  that  the  emphasis  is  not  put  on  the  fact  that 
the  waves  were  suddenly  flattened  and  certain  meteor- 
ological phenomena  dispelled,  but  upon  faith.  The 
men  who  were  with  Jesus  were  experienced  fishermen 
who  had  lived  all  their  lives  by  and  on  the  Sea  of 
Galilee,  and  to  assume  that  they  were  overwhelmed 
with  terror  is  absurd.    But  their  fear  doubtless  is  some- 


'J2  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

what  accentuated  to  bring  out  the  gospel  lesson  that 
faith  dispels  and  casts  out  fear.  There  is  no  doubt 
that  this  incident  occurred.  The  Sea  of  Galilee  is 
down  in  a  bowl  surrounded  by  high  cliffs.  Farrar 
records  that  the  heated  air  suddenly  sweeping  down 
into  this  cool  bowl  often  produces  violent  hurricanes 
which  will  last  but  a  few  minutes,  vanishing  as  quickly 
as  they  come.  It  would  be  entirely  probable  that  by 
the  time  Jesus,  who  was  sound  asleep,  awakened,  the 
storm  would  have  exhausted  its  force.  Again  it  is 
possible  that  a  parallelizing  tendency  is  at  work  here 
again  through  the  influence  of  the  Old  Testament 
upon  the  New.  When  the  Messiah  came  as  vicegerent 
of  God  on  earth,  it  had  been  foretold  that  he  should 
be  able  to  exercise  control  over  wind  and  wave  (Psalms 
77:16-19  and  107:23-30,  the  latter  of  which  closely 
parallels  Mark  4:  34-41 ;  H  Kings  6:5-7;  Isaiah  43:  2; 
Nahum  i :  4,  etc.). 

(2)  Walking  on  the  Water  (Mark  6:  48-51;  Matt. 
14:22-33)  is  based  on  the  same  principle  observed 
in  the  Old  Testament  references  given  in  the  last 
sentence  preceding.  When  the  Messiah  came,  he  was 
to  have  dominion  over  the  waters.  This  miracle  creeps 
into  the  New  Testament  under  the  parallelizing  influ- 
ence of  the  Old  Testament.  Once  again,  the  point  is 
not  the  assertion  that  the  physical  body  of  Jesus  sud- 
denly lost  its  specific  gravity  and  natural  gross  den- 
sity, but  that  faith  overcomes  all  obstacles. 

(3)  Feeding  the  Multitudes  (Mark  6:31-44;  Matt. 
14:13-21;  Luke  9:10-17;  repeated  with  slight  varia- 
tion in  Mark  8  and  Matthew  15).  These  very  similar 
incidents,  usually  considered   as  miracles,   are  given  in 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  73 

their  true  light  in  John  6:28-58  as  symbols  of  the 
Eucharist.  There  were  gathered  up  twelve  baskets 
of  fragments,— one  for  each  apostle.  There  were  five 
loaves  and  two  fishes,  or  a  total  of  seven  units,— seven 
being  a  significant  religious  number  to  the  Jews.  Who 
counted  the  multitudes?  Would  they  go  out  into  the 
wilderness  without  food?  These  questions  naturally 
occur  to  the  analyst  of  this  miracle  story.  John  6 :  30 
and  49-51  observe  a  close  parallel  in  the  Old  Testament 
account  of  the  children  of  Israel  being  fed  Manna  in 
the  wilderness.  H  Kings  5 :  42-44  tells  of  Elisha  feed- 
ing a  multitude  over  the  protest  of  the  servitor  that 
the  quantity  of  food  was  too  small.  Psalm  107 : 4-9 
parallels  the  New  Testament  idea  very  strikingly,  as 
does  Micah  7:  14  and  15.  Here  again  we  have  very 
beautiful  incidents  told  by  the  New  Testament  writers 
but  slightly  developed  by  the  influence  of  the  Old 
Testament  upon  the  New. 

(4)  Cursing  the  Fig-Tree  (Mark  11:12-24  and  20- 
26;  Matt.  21:18-22;  Luke  13:6-9  and  20-26).  The 
student  should  first  read  the  accounts  of  Mark  and 
Matthew,  and  then  that  of  Luke.  It  will  be  found 
that  Luke  gives  as  a  parable  what  Mark  and  Matthew 
give  as  a  fact.  The  fig-tree  in  every  case  represents 
Jewish  national  life,  and  is  intended  to  fulfil  the  pro- 
phecy of  John  the  Baptizer  (Luke  3:9).  This  inci- 
dent is  a  parable  spoken  as  Jesus  sees  a  dying  fig-tree 
which  suddenly  occurs  to  him  as  a  symbol  of  the 
religious  life  of  his  people,  who  were  meant  to  be  the 
"salt  of  the  earth." 

In  concluding  our  consideration  of  the  miracles  of 
Jesus,  the  incident  of  the  Coin  in  the  Fish's  Mouth 


74  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

(Matt.  17:24-27)  must  be  noted  as  a  reported  saying 
of  his,  but  not  given  by  the  original  account  of  Mark. 
The  coin  is  twice  the  amount  of  the  tax,  and  the  story 
ends  without  saying  whether  it  is  ever  done  or  not. 
The  point  is  that  Jesus  conformed  in  paying  taxes  as 
well  as  in  baptism,  and  so  ought  his  followers  to  ob- 
serve the  civil  law  wherever  they  may  live. 

The  miracles  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  are  not  treated 
here,  because,  as  Professor  Bacon  remarks,  "The  seven 
progressive  ^signs'  that  he  (John)  narrates,  culminat- 
ing in  the  raising  of  Lazarus,  are  avowedly  (20:31) 
illustrative  selections  from  a  multitude  of  current  mir- 
acle tales,"  and  are  not  given  for  their  historical  value, 
since  not  handed  down  in  except  possibly  one  or  two 
cases  to  Mark  as  part  of  the  Petrine  tradition,  but  for 
their  theological  value.  In  other  words,  we  repeat 
that  the  Fourth  Gospel  makes  no  pretense  of  being  an 
historical  account  in  itself  of  the  life  of  Jesus.  Mir- 
acles are  not  purely  a  Biblical  phenomenon,  nor  pecu- 
liar to  Jesus.  They  neither  add  nor  take  away  any- 
thing to  or  from  our  estimate  of  him  when  we  sum 
up  his  permanent  effect  upon  human  history. 

12.  The  Parables  of  Jesus. — As  the  ministry  of 
Jesus  progressed,  it  became  increasingly  apparent  that 
his  advocacy  of  a  progressive,  reformed  Judaism  wa^ 
evoking  bitter  hostility  and  hatred  on  the  part  of  the 
conservative  ecclesiastical  circle  at  Jerusalem,  who 
controlled  the  national  church  of  the  Jews.  There  is 
a  sharp  break  discernible  in  the  teaching  method  of 
Jesus  in  Matthew  12  and  13,  which  proves  him  a 
master  psychologist.  Observing  that  a  too  plain,  out- 
spoken message  would  bring  such  violent  opposition 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  75 

to  his  work  as  to  make  it  impossible  for  him  to  con- 
tinue, he  turned  from  a  direct  to  an  indirect  method 
of  attack.  Matthew  13  gives  a  series  of  parables  (Q 
material  topically  arranged)  showing  a  new  method  of 
approach  which  should  partially  veil  the  plainness  of 
the  conclusions  inevitable  from  his  argument.  These 
parables  are  masterpieces  of  the  story-teller's  art. 
Luke's  Perean  Section  contain  the  most  famous :  Laz- 
arus and  Dives,  the  Prodigal  Son,  the  Good  Samari- 
tan, etc.  Following  are  the  parables  of  Jesus,  alpha- 
betically arranged  and  briefly  interpreted,  by  which" 
he  avoided  a  premature  break  with  the  Jewish  gov- 
ernment until  such  time  as  he  chose  to  fling  defiance 
into  their  teeth  (the  Triumphal  Entry  episode): 

THE  PARABLES  ENUMERATED 

(i)  Fig-Tree:  (Luke  13:6-9).  The  heart  of  this 
parable  seems  to  be  in  verse  7.  The  "three  years" 
refer  to  the  three  years  of  Jesus'  ministry,  which  were 
barren  insofar  as  Jewish  national  acceptance  of  him 
was  concerned ;  the  "certain  man"  is  God ;  the  "dresser 
of  the  vineyard"  is  Jesus,  who  intercedes  for  its  pres- 
ervation from  destruction  yet  another  year. 

(2)  Friend  at  Midnight:  (Luke  11:5-9).  By  this" 
parable  Jesus  teaches  that  prayer,  to  be  thoroughly 
effective,  must  be  persevering. 

(3)  Good  Samaritan:  (Luke  10:30-37).  This  par- 
able was  given  in  answer  to  the  question,  "Who  is  my 
neighbor?"  (10:  29).  Jesus  shows  His  breadth  of  view 
by  making  a  hated  Samaritan  a  better  neighbor  than 
a  Jewish  priest  or  priest's  apprentice.    A  true  neigh- 


ye  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

bor  is  one  who  extends  the  helping  hand  in  another's 
hour  of  deep  distress,  and  the  personal  devotion  is 
even  more  important  than  had  it  been  done  through' 
the  impersonal  agency  of  institutional  or  organized 
charity.  The  victim  of  the  parable  needed  personal 
friendship  and  sympathy  even  more  than  he  needed  ma- 
terial assistance. 

(4)  Great  Supper:  (Luke  14:16-24).  This  parable 
may  refer  to  the  call  of  the  Gentiles  as  stewards  of 
Christianity,  after  the  Jews  had  rejected  that  privi- 
lege. Again,  it  may  mean  that,  between  the  two  hu- 
man extremes  of  those  who  are  completely  wrapped 
up  in  worldly  affairs,  and  the  beggar,  the  poor  la- 
borer, the  publican,  and  the  outcast,  the  latter  have 
ultimately  the  spiritual  advantage,  of  entrance  into 
the  kingdom  of  God.    See  Matthew  21 :  31,  32. 

(5)  Hidden  Treasure:  (Matt.  13:44)-  Entrance 
into  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  when  one  has  once  dis- 
covered the  way,  is  similar  in  its  effect  as  if  the  person 
concerned  were  materially  poor  and  had  suddenly  dis- 
covered a  secret  of  improving  his  financial  condition. 
The  parable  thus  exemplifies  the  joy  of  one  who  leaves 
all  to  follow  Christ,  once  he  understands  the  signifi- 
cance of  his  act  and  its  rewards. 

(6)  House  Built  on  the  Sand:  (Matt.  7 :  24-27 ;  Luke 
6:47-49).  The  person  who  conducts  his  life  on  Chris- 
tian principles  as  enunciated  in  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount  has  built  his  life  and  character  upon  a  founda- 
tion of  rock,  so  that  when  the  rains  and  winds  of 
adversity,  sorrow,  and  misfortune  beat  against  it,  it 
will  not  be  seriously  shaken,  much  less  be  completely 
swept  away.    Those  who  build  upon  sand  apparently 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  ^^ 

are  they  who  neglect  the  spiritual  life,  and  strive  to 
build  their  happiness  upon  money,  pleasure,  self-seek- 
ing, and  material  affairs,  which  are  not  permanent. 

(7)  Laborers  in  the  Vineyard:  (Matt.  20:1-16). 
All  who  serve  God  will  be  rewarded.  Often  those  who 
serve  Him  at  "the  eleventh  hour"  accomplish  actually 
more  than  those  who,  of  less  ability,  have  served  Him 
constantly.  The  laborers  under  the  hire  of  God  will 
be  rewarded  according  to  their  opportunity  and  en- 
lightenment, and  not  according  to  proportionate  length' 
of  service.  The  recently  converted  heathen  who  serves 
God  will  be  rewarded  just  as  much  as  the  ag^ed  civilized 
Christian  who  also  has  served  him  a  lifetime,  but  with 
the  added  advantage  of  enlightenment  from  childhood 
in  a  Bible  land.  In  other  words,  eternal  life  is  a  gift 
of  God,  and  not  something  which  is  earned. 

(8)  Lazarus  and  the  Rich  Man:  (Luke  16:  19-31). 
This,  like  other  parables,  is  capable  of  more  than  one 
application  to  life.  Obviously,  it  is  aimed  at  wealth 
that  is  indifferent  to  human  need,  and  not  at  wealth  it- 
self. It  shows  that  "God  is  no  respecter  of  persons" 
(Acts  10:34);  that  the  judgment  of  the  next  World 
is  often  the  reverse  of  the  judgment  of  this ;  and  that 
externals  count  nothing  against  the  condition  of  the 
heart.  It  gives,  metaphorically,  an  interesting  glimpse 
of  eternity  as  anciently  conceived.  Apparently  the 
future  life  is  to  be  one  of  conscious  remembrance  of 
the  deeds  committed  in  this  (Luke  16:25);  there  is  a 
state  of  retribution  and  penalty  of  sin  (16:23);  a  re- 
versal of  rewards  and  advantages  in  the  case  of  the 
hard-hearted  rich  (56:25);  and  it  illustrates  the  an- 
guish of  the  lost  (16:24). 


78  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

(9)  Leaven:  (Matt.  13:33).  The  parable  of  the 
mustard-seed  is  primarily  the  parable  of  external,  visi- 
ble growth  of  the  kingdom ;  the  parable  of  the  leaven 
is  the  parable  of  chemical  diffusion,  as  yeast  diffuses 
through  dough.  Christianity  is  a  leaven  which  dif- 
fuses silently  through  and  improves  every  field  of 
human  activity:  education,  art,  literature,  journalism, 
music,  interpretation  of  law,  the  promotion  of  science 
through  benevolent  foundations  and  broad  tolerance, 
and  in  our  day,  particularly,  it  is  going  to  be  enforced 
in  international  relationships. 

(10)  Lrost  Piece  of  Money:  (Luke  15:8,  9).  This 
parable  is  admirably  interpreted  by  Jesus  himself  in 
verse  10.  It  is  an  incentive  to  Christian  workers  to 
go  out  and  redeem  the  lost,  from  the  street-corners, 
the  saloons,  the  pool-rooms,  and  the  dens  of  idleness 
and  vice. 

(11)  Lost  Sheep:  (Matt.  18:12-13;  Luke  15:4-7). 
This  parable  is  also  called  "the  Ninety  and  the  Nine" 
(Luke  15:4).  The  interpretation  is  the  same  as  in 
the  case  of  the  lost  piece  of  money.  Both  illustrate 
that  all  human  souls  are  equally  important  as  far  as 
their  salvation  and  value  are  concerned. 

(12)  Marriage  of  the  King's  Son:  (Matt.  22:  i-io). 
This  parable  emphatically  illustrates  the  rejection  of 
Jesus  by  the  Jews  and  the  call  of  the  Gentiles  to  carry 
the  banner  of  Christianity.  The  King  is  God;  His 
Son  is  Jesus  Christ;  the  servants  are  Christian  disci- 
ples; the  invited  guests  are  the  Jews;  the  burning  of 
the  city  (v.  7)  foretells  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem; 
and  those  gathered  from  the  highways  are  heathen 
Gentiles,  good  and  bad. 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  79 

(13)  Mustard-Seed:  (Matt.  i3:3i>  3^;  Mark  5:31, 
32;  Luke  13:  18,  19).  The  kingdom  of  God  had  a 
tiny  beginning  in  numbers  and  influence, — one  man 
and  twelve  disciples, — but  has  grown  so  gigantic  as 
to  include  today  one-third  of  the  human  race,  and  that 
third  controls  mainly  the  affairs  of  the  rest  of  the 
world.  The  mustard-plant  is  still  growing,  and  the 
words  of  Jesus  are  still  to  be  realized  by  missionary 
effort.  Sometimes  this  parable  is  applied  to  the  indi- 
vidual whose  faith  at  first  is  small  and  timorous,  but 
growth  in  the  Christian  life  makes  him  strong  and  of 
great  religious  influence. 

(14)  Net  Cast  into  the  Sea:  (Matt.  13 :  47-49)-  This 
parable  Jesus  explains  himself  (verses  49,  50),  and 
refers  to  the  sifting  out  process  also  described  in  par- 
ables (19)  and  (28),  which  see. 

(15)  Pearl  of  Great  Price:  (Matt.  13 :  45,  46).  This 
parable  is  practically  the  same  in  meaning  as  (5)  pre- 
ceding. It  illustrates  the  desirability  of  membership 
in  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  and  the  reward  of  one  who 
leaves  all  to  follow  Christ. 

(16)  Pharisee  and  Publican:  (Luke  18:9-14).  By 
this  parable  Jesus  exemplified  that  humility  is  the 
standard  by  which  God  judges  personal  religion,  and 
not  external  service  or  mere  lip-loyalty.  Verse  12 
refers  to  Monday  and  Thursday,  the  two  fast-days  of 
the  week  scrupulously  observed  by  every  strict 
Pharisee. 

(17)  Prodigal  Son:  (Luke  15 :  11-32).  It  is  essen- 
tial to  know  that  the  word  "prodigal"  means  "extrav- 
agant" or  "spendthrift,"  and  not  "wandering."  The 
word  is  popularly  thus  misunderstood,  unless  the  two 


8o  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

usually  go  together  when  applied  to  modern  cases.  By 
this  parable  Jesus  overturned  the  ancient  Jewish  con- 
ception of  God  as  purely  a  God  of  wrath  and  revenge 
(Exodus  20:5),  substituting  the  conception  that  God 
is  like  a  kind,  generous,  whole-hearted  father,  gracious 
and  forgiving  to  his  erring  children  if  they  will  but 
repent  (verse  18)  and  return  to  him.  "The  elder  son" 
of  the  parable  (verse  25),  objecting  to  the  lavish  cele- 
bration of  the  sinner's  return,  is  assured  that  all  God 
has  belongs  to  him,  although  no  demonstration  was 
ever  made  for  him  (v.  31) ;  and  he  typifies  those  who 
live  all  their  lives  under  the  approval  of  God.  The 
latter  import  of  this  parable  is  similar  to  that  of  (9) 
and  (10),  preceding. 

(18)  Rich  Fool:  (Luke  12:  16-20).  Here  is  a  par- 
able of  warning  similar  to  that  of  Lazarus  and  the 
Rich  Man  (8).  We  have  control  of  our  lives  only  to 
very  limited  extent,  and  we  build  our  life's  foundation 
upon  sand  when  we  trust  in  riches,  pleasure,  and  the 
things  of  this  world  alone,  to  the  exclusion  of  the  re- 
ligious sentiment  (See  Matt.  6:33).  Dante  has 
pointed  out  in  the  "Inferno"  that  the  seventh  of  the 
seven  deadly  sins  is  so  deadly  that  he  hesitates  to 
call  it  by  name,  but  we  ultimately  discover  that  it  is 
selfishness. 

(19)  Seed  Growing  Secretly :  (Mark  4:  26-29).  The 
growth  of  the  kingdom  of  God  is  secret  and  invisible, 
like  the  seed  of  grain  which  grows  while  its  owner 
and  observers  sleep,  and  ripens  into  harvest  without 
anyone  being  able  to  explain  the  how  or  why,  and  is 
equally  as  astonishing. 

(20)  Sheep  and  the  Goats:    (Matt.  25:31-46).    The 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  8i 

final  test  of  admission  into  the  kingdom  of  God  is  how 
one  has  ordered  his  life  in  relation  to  lives  less  fortu- 
nate than  his.  Individual  ministration  to  human  needs 
while  in  this  life  is  the  final  standard  of  the  Great 
Judge.  It  is  simply  a  question  of  selfishness  versus 
service  and  charity.  The  most  startling  feature  about 
this  parable  is  that  many  of  the  "sheep"  were  actually 
goats,  and  were  perfectly  unaware  of  the  fact  (verses 

44,45). 

(21)  Sower  and  the  Seed:  (Matt.  13:3-23;  Mark 
4:3-20;  Luke  8:5-15).  This  parable  was  taken  from 
scenes  of  life  with  which  the  audience  of  Jesus  was 
quite  familiar.  There  are  four  kinds  of  soil:  (a)  the 
wayside,  where  the  fowls  came,  (b)  stony,  shallow 
soil,  (c)  soil  not  cultivated,  and  infested  with  thorns, 
(d)  good,  prepared  soil;  and  these  represent  four  kinds 
of  people  who  receive  the  "seed"  of  the  gospel:  (a) 
those  who  do  not  understand  or  appreciate  the  aim  of 
the  gospel-message,  and  evil  soon  blots  out  their  ac- 
tivity in  its  behalf  (these  presumably  are  people  who 
stay  away  from  the  church);  (b)  those  who  eagerly 
and  even  joyfully  are  converted,  but  realizing  that  the 
Christian  life  is  a  struggle,  soon  flag  and  quit  (these 
are  emotional  people  converted  in  great  revivals  who 
were  excited  only  temporarily) ;  (c)  those  who  accept 
the  message  at  its  face  value,  but  continue  their  busi- 
ness-cares evenings,  holidays,  and  Sundays,  until  they 
become  ciphers  in  the  spread  of  the  gospel;  and  (d) 
the  active,  worth-while  Christian,  who  promotes  the 
gospel. 

(22)  Talents:  (Matt.  25:  14-29).  The  gold  talent 
(a  weight  of  metal  used  as  a  money-unit)  of  the  He- 


82  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

brews  was  worth  about  $32,000,  and  the  silver  talent, 
$2,000.  It  is  interesting  to  know  that  Jesus  gave  us 
the  meaning  of  "special  aptitude"  for  the  word  "tal- 
ent" from  this  parable.  This  is  a  parable  of  the  rela- 
tion of  faith  to  work.  Those  who  have  the  advantages 
of  the  gospel  should  make  the  most  of  them,  and  not 
rest  idly  content  in  selfish  possession.  The  Great 
Judge  at  the  last  day  will  not  tolerate  such  slothful- 
ness  (v.  26),  any  more  than  a  captain  of  industry 
would  tolerate  it  from  one  of  his  subordinates  or  agents 
whom  he  had  entrusted  with  a  considerable  amount  of 
money,  and  who  had  failed  to  use  it  profitably.  Note 
that  no  more  is  expected  from  anyone  out  of  propor- 
tion to  his  ability  in  either  case  (v.  15). 

(23)  Ten  Pounds:  (Luke  19:  12-27).  A  "pound"  is 
British  money-unit  worth  approximately  five  dollars. 
This  parable  has  the  same  application  as  the  preced- 
ing (22),  and  is,  in  fact,  only  a  varied  version  of  it. 
But  Luke's  version,  uttered  in  the  house  of  Zaccheus, 
seems  more  specific ;  the  nobleman  typifies  Jesus ;  his 
departure,  the  departure  of  Jesus  from  this  world ;  his 
return,  the  second  coming  of  Christ;  his  rewards,  the 
principle  upon  which  Christ  will  reward  His  faithful 
as  against  His  faithless  servants  at  the  Last  Judg- 
ment. Note  verse  11  particularly  in  interpreting  this 
parable. 

(24)  Two  Debtors:  (Luke  7:  40-43).  This  parable, 
uttered  in  reproof  of  Simon  the  Pharisee,  showed  the 
Pharisee  that  the  measure  of  love  received  in  life  is 
proportioned  by  the  amount  of  charity  displayed  for 
the  shortcomings  of  others.     The  sinful  woman  had 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  83 

more  to  repent  for  than  did  Simon  by  his  inhospitality ; 
therefore,  her  heart  was  greater  than  his. 

(25)  Two  Sons:  (Matt.  21 :  28-31).  The  first  son, 
who  at  first  refused  to  work  for  his  father,  but  after- 
ward repented  and  went,  typifies  the  sinners  who  re- 
pented and  are  now  working  for  the  cause  of  right- 
eousness ;  the  second  son,  who  glibly  promised  to 
work,  but  did  not,  typifies  the  Pharisees  to  whom  this 
parable  is  addressed,  who  are  not  performing  the  will 
of  God  (see  also  Matt.  23:  15). 

{26)  Unjust  Judge:  (Luke  18:  1-8).  This  has  iden- 
tically the  same  application  as  (2),  preceding,  as  is 
evident  from  Luke  18:  i. 

(2y)  Unjust  Steward:  (Luke  16:1-13).  "Unjust" 
here,  as  elsewhere,  frequently  in  the  Bible  means  "dis- 
honest." Jesus  wants  us  to  imitate,  not  the  steward's 
dishonesty,  but  his  prudence  and  cleverness  in  making 
himself  a  friend  to  his  master's  debtors  who  helped 
him  out  of  his  difficulty.  The  disciples  of  Christ,  if 
they  use  their  message  to  aid  and  comfort  others  in  a 
practical  way,  are  not  likely  to  be  left  in  want  when 
misfortune  overtakes  them.  This  is  a  parable  of  con- 
trast, like  the  parables  of  the  Friend  at  Midnight  (2), 
and  the  Unjust  Judge  (24) ;  that  is,  there  is  no  ap- 
proval of  the  conduct  of  the  self-interested  ones,  but 
the  lesson  is  emphasized  by  the  fact  that  the  people 
involved  were  not  of  a  high  standard  of  decorum  or 
honesty. 

(28)  Unmerciful  Servant:  (Matt.  18:23-35).  One 
of  the  cardinal  points  of  Christian  doctrine  as  set  forth' 
by  Christ  in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  and  elsewhere 


84  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

is  mercifulness  (Matt.  5:7;  6:12).     God  will  not  be 
merciful  to  the  unmerciful  (Matt.  18:35). 

(29)  Wheat  and  the  Tares:  (Matt.  13:24-42). 
Jesus  explains  this  parable  so  convincingly  and  sim- 
ply that  no  analytical  version  could  improve  upon  it 
(Matt.  13:36-42). 

(30)  Wicked  Husbandmen:  (Matt.  21 :  33-41 ;  Mark 
12:  1-9;  Luke  20:9-16).  This  parable  again  illustrates 
the  Jewish  rejection  of  their  Messiah,  and  His  accept- 
ance by  the  Gentiles.  The  vineyard  is  the  kingdom 
of  Israel ;  the  householder,  God ;  the  husbandmen,  the 
Jews ;  the  servants  sent  as  messengers  are  the  prophets 
slain  of  old ;  the  Son,  Jesus  Christ  (verse  37),  whom 
they  also  slew  by  crucifixion ;  the  destruction  of  the 
vineyard  is  the  destruction  of  the  Jewish  nation  in  70 
A.  D.;  and  the  "other  husbandmen"  are  the  Greeks, 
Romans,  and  other  Gentiles,  who  were  to  perpetuate 
Christianity. 

(31)  Wise  and  Foolish  Virgins:  (Matt.  25:1-13). 
Those  who  prepare  to  become  members  of  the  king- 
dom of  heaven  at  the  last  minute,  but  who  really  knew 
better  in  the  first  place,  will  be  shut  out.  The  par- 
able teaches  the  suddenness  of  Christ's  coming,  and 
"preparedness."  When  the  kingdom  of  God  shall 
come,  there  will  always  be  some  on  the  wrong  side 
of  the  door. 

13.  Peter's  Confession  (Mark  8:27-31;  Matt.  16: 
13-20).  Just  as  every  Shakespearean  play  has  a  cli- 
max in  the  third  act,  so  the  grand  climax  of  the 
ministry  of  Jesus  probably  came  in  its  third  year. 
Now  that  his  disciples  had  observed  his  work  and 
absorbed  his  conception  of  the  New,  Universal,  Re- 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  85 

formed  Judaism,  Jesus  put  to  them  the  final  question 
which  was  carefully  designed  to  search  their  hearts, 
to  test  their  faith,  and  to  disclose  to  him  some  of  the 
deepest  impressions  of  their  extended  association  with 
him.  From  this  interesting  dialogue  it  is  very  vividly 
apparent  that  the  Carpenter  of  Nazareth  had  not  im- 
pressed his  fellow-countrymen  that  he  was  the  ex- 
pected Messiah.  In  fact,  the  truth  is  that  Jesus  only 
considered  himself  the  Messiah-Elect,  and  that  he 
should  not  be  the  Messiah-in-Fact  until  after  he  had 
suffered  his  ignominious  death  on  the  cross.  Else  why 
did  he  charge  his  disciples  not  to  repeat  the  substance 
of  Peter's  Confession,  and  why  did  he  immediately 
thereafter  begin  to  explain  the  nature  and  purpose  of 
his  death  and  resurrection?  David  was  anointed  to 
be  King  of  Israel  as  a  child,  but  served  as  a  shepherd 
many  years  in  the  interim.  Paul  regards  the  Messianic 
career  of  Jesus  as  beginning  after  the  death  of  Jesus, 
and  very  seldom  refers  to  the  earthly  career  of  Jesus, 
and  never  uses  miracle-story  to  prove  the  Messiahship 
of  Jesus.  Up  to  Peter's  Confession,  the  people  appar- 
ently had  no  idea  of  Jesus  as  Messiah;  and  modern 
Judaism,  using  such  scholarly  spokesmen  as  Stephen 
S.  Wise  and  C.  G.  Montefiore,  stoutly  defends  this 
conclusion.  In  fact,  the  probability  is  that  when 
Christianity  divests  itself  of  supernaturalism,  and  mod- 
ern Judaism  of  much  of  its  historical  paraphernalia, 
that  the  two  religions  will  find  much  common  ground 
on  which  they  can  agree,  for  socially  and  spiritually 
the  two  are  virtually  identical.  Verse  19  of  Matthew 
16  delegates  to  Peter  the  power  to  bind  and  loosen 
Christians  to  Christian  covenants  and  contracts,  par- 


86  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

ticularly  in  a  spiritual  sense,  and  therefore  to  him  the 
founding  of  the  Christian  organization  (see  Acts  2: 
38-41 ) ;  and  it  was  he  who  converted  the  first  Gentile 
(Acts  10). 

14.  The  Transfiguration.— The  Transfiguration  of 
Jesus  is  regarded  by  Bowen  and  by  many  German 
scholars  as  one  of  the  post-Resurrection  appearances 
of  Jesus  to  his  disciples.^  Wellhausen,  Holtzmann, 
Kohler,  and  Bacon  support  this  view.  Bacon  describes 
the  Transfiguration  as  "a  halting  attempt  to  embody 
Pauline  doctrine  in  Petrine  story."  ^  If  these  views 
are  legitimate,  as  Bowen  suggests,  "the  Transfigura- 
tion of  Jesus  upon  the  mountain  is,  in  its  origin,  the 
appearing  of  the  risen  and  glorified  Jesus  to  Peter." 
It  is  noticeable,  as  Goodspeed  suggests,  that  the  two 
who  appear  with  Jesus  in  this  scene  are  Moses  and 
Elijah,  the  spiritual  leaders  of  Israel,  and  not  David 
and  Solomon,  the  military  and  regal  leaders  of  Israel. 
Alford  remarks  that  the  Law  and  the  Prophets  here 
consigned  into  the  hands  of  Jesus  their  delegated  and 
expiring  power, — that  the  Old  Dispensation  had  passed 
away,  and  the  New  had  come  into  definite  authority. 
The  documentary  and  textual  problem  of  this  incident 
must  remain  open,  however :  is  it  a  pre-  or  post-Resur- 
rection appearance  of  Jesus,  with  Moses  and  Elijah, 
to  his  disciples? 

15.  The  Triumphal  Entry:  (Mark  ii:i-ii;  Matt. 
19:29-44;  John  12:  12-19). — The  black  thunder-clouds 
of  official  opposition  to  the  doctrine  and  ministry  of 

^  See  C.  R.  Bowen :  "The  Resurrection  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment" (Crown  Theolog.  Lib.,  G.  P.  Putnam's,  1911),  pp.  419-423. 

2  B.  W.  Bacon:  "The  Making  of  The  New  Testament"  (Home 
Univ.  Lib.,  Henry  Holt  &  Co.,  1912),  p.  230. 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  87 

Jesus  had  been  gathering  ominously  on  the  horizon 
for  some  time,  and  now  threatened  at  any  moment  to 
engulf  him.     Fifteen  separate  conflicts  between  Jesus 
and  the  Pharisees  are  recorded  in  Mark,  and  all  of 
them  deal  with  purity  and  sincerity  in  religion  as  over 
against  formalism,  ceremonialism,  and  ecclesiasticism. 
The  arguments  of  Jesus  as  to  what  constituted  the 
substance  of  real  religion,  and  his  criticisms  of  Phari- 
saic morality,  are  in  reality  what  precipitated  his  death. 
After  Peter's  Confession  Jesus  devoted  his  time  main- 
ly to  private  instructions  to  his  disciples  to  strengthen 
their  faith  for  the  coming  ordeal  of  his  ignoble  and 
tragic  removal  from  their  midst,  and  reduced  his  pub- 
lic ministry  to  a  minimum.    He  succeeded  completely, 
although  he  could  not  forestall  the  temporary  panic 
which  assailed  them  at  the  crucifixion.     Every  inch  a 
man,  and  at  no  time  a  shirker  or  slacker,  the  rugged 
young  carpenter  now  "set  his  face  steadfastly  to  go 
to  Jerusalem"    (Luke  9:51)-     Like  Martin   Luther's 
famous  visit  to  the  Diet  of  Worms,  Jesus,  a  loyal  and 
devout  Jew  to  the  last,  attended  his  last  Passover, 
and  deliberately  "put  his  head  in  the  lion's  mouth." 
The  Triumphal   Entry   is  one  of  the  most  dramatic 
episodes  in  the  whole  life  of  Jesus,  being  exceeded  only 
by  the  more  sensational  manner  of  his  trial  and  exe- 
cution.    He  received  an  ovation  all  along  the  route. 
He  came,  not  on  a  prancing  war-horse,  but  on  the 
donkey,  the  emblem  of  peace  and  royalty  (I  Kings  i : 
32-34;  H  Samuel  13:  29).    He  made  this  sharp  distinc- 
tion,   though    yielding    temporarily    to    the    popular 
clamor.     It  is  notable  that  the  Palms  figure  only  in 
the  Fourth   Gospel  account;  Mark's  account  of  the 


88  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

incident  is  not  Messianic  but  prophetic;  Matthew 
makes  it  Messianic  in  the  shout  of  the  populace,  but 
when  they  explain  it  they  say,  "He  is  a  prophet" ;  and 
Luke  echoes  his  own  Infancy  Narrative,  "Hail  to  the 
King.  Peace  and  glory  and  honor  in  the  highest!" 
The  political  demonstration  accorded  Jesus  by  the 
throngs  who  lined  the  roads  was  distinctly  rural  and 
provincial;  in  it  the  proud  inhabitants  of  Jerusalem 
took  no  part,  for  "the  Pharisees  said  among  them- 
selves:  'Behold,  the  world  is  gone  after  him!' "  (John 
12:  19) — a  tribute  to  the  effectiveness  of  the  demon- 
stration. Jesus  doubtless  chose  this  method,  which 
he  had  expressly  forbidden  himself  during  his  Temp- 
tation in  the  Wilderness,  to  fling  his  defiance  into  the 
faces  of  the  authorities  at  Jerusalem  in  a  manner  which 
would  stamp  itself  indelibly  in  the  history  of  the  na- 
tion. Then  he  topped  it  off  with  the  bitter,  scathing, 
flaming  denunciations  recorded  in  Matthew  23,  beside 
which  the  lacerating  satire  of  Swift  sinks  into  ghostly 
paleness.  This  last  sermon  precipitated  the  death  of 
Jesus  within  less  than  twenty-four  hours,  the  Phari- 
sees using  as  a  tool  the  avaricious,  but  poor,  ignorant, 
and  unsophisticated  Judas  Iscariot,  whom  they  very 
obviously  defrauded  in  the  small  amount  he  received, 
and  whose  name  has  ever  since  been  a  hissing  and  a 
byword,  synonymous  with  detestable  treachery. 

16.  The  Last  Supper. — This  beautiful  incident 
should  be  treated  reverently  as  well  as  critically,  for 
on  it  has  been  based  one  of  the  sacraments  of  the 
Christian  church  universal.  The  events  leading  up  to 
this  event  of  Thursday  evening  are  too  well  known  to 
need  elaboration.    A  controversy  has  raged  over  the 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  89 

question  of  whether  the  Last  Supper  was  Jesus'  cele- 
bration of  the  Passover.    All  evidence  militates  against 
this  view.     The  Jewish  day  began  at  sunset;  supper 
was  the  first  meal  of  the  day.     Mark  14:  12-16,  which 
seems  to  contradict  the  rest  of  that  chapter,  is  regarded 
by  many  scholars  as  an  interpolation,  and  not  authen- 
tic.   Mark  14:  17,  18  may  mean  that  the  Last  Supper 
was  not  the  Passover  celebration  originally  prepared 
for.    Jesus  was  buried  in  a  hasty  fashion  by  Joseph  of 
Arimathea,  who  felt  duty-bound  to  prepare  himself 
undefiled  by  contact  with  a  corpse,  for  the  Passover. 
Therefore,  it  was  too  early  for  Jesus  to  celebrate  the 
feast.    Or  did  he  feel  that  it  had  come  to  be  a  super- 
fluity in  Jewish  religious  life?    In  any  event  none  of 
the   Passover   ritual   was   here   gone   through   with; 
there  was  no  Paschal  Lamb,  no  bitter  herbs,  no  un- 
leavened bread,  and  no  fourfold  drinking  of  wine.    If 
the  Passover  Lamb  had  lain  before  them,  Jesus  would 
hardly  have  used  the  bread  or  cracker,  to  symbolize 
his  death.     It  apparently  was  a  farewell  meal  to  his 
beloved  associates  who  henceforth  would  see  him  no 
more  in  the  flesh.    As  he  broke  the  bread  for  the  meal 
it  suddenly  flashed  over  his  mind  that  here  was   a 
homely  symbol  of  his  wrecked  life,  now  falling  into 
fragments;  the  wine  poured  out  suggested  vividly  to 
his  imagination  the  shedding  of  blood.     These  were 
merely  the  simple  acts  of  the  supper-table,  and  con- 
tained   nothing    particularly    theological    or    didactic. 
The  sacramental  idea  was  "in  the  air"  in  ancient  and 
mediaeval  times,  and  inevitably  these  became  church 
sacraments.    For  centuries  Christians  called  it  simply 
the  Breaking  of  the  Bread  and  The  Cup.    In  Gethse- 


90  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

mane  Jesus  again  used  the  cup  of  wine  idea  as  a  sym- 
bol of  his  martyrdom,  as  he  had  done  in  Matt.  20. 
These  were  parables  of  his  death.  Jesus  knew  that 
if  he  were  put  to  death  that  it  must  occur  before  the 
Passover;  he  knew  that  the  Jews  could  not  execute 
him,  but  only  the  Romans,  and  hence,  his  manner  of 
death  could  be  easily  foreseen ;  he  seems  to  have  sus- 
pected that  Judas  had  betrayed  the  Messianic  Secret 
to  the  Jewish  reactionaries,  which  he  had  been  charged 
not  to  do  (Mat.  16:20);  and  that  the  storm  must 
break  within  twenty-four  hours,  which  it  did.  In 
Gethsemane  the  disciples  obviously  did  not  realize 
the  nearness  of  his  death,  for  they  went  to  sleep.  The 
last  words  that  Jesus  directed  to  his  disciples  were 
focussed  on  the  impulsive  and  changeable  apostle  to 
whom  he  had  given  the  keys  of  heaven,  and  who  de- 
nied him  three  times :  "Simon,  Simon,  Satan  has  de- 
sired to  possess  you  that  he  may  sift  you  as  wheat  is 
sifted ;  but  I  have  prayed  for  you,  that  your  faith  fail 
not,  and  when  at  last  you  have  come  back  to  your  true 
self,  you  must  strengthen  your  brethren"  (Luke  22: 
31,  32).  In  Gethesemane  Jesus  was  seized  by  a  band 
of  men  sent  out  from  the  officials  of  the  Sanhedrin,  or 
Jewish  supreme  court.  His  sudden  imprisonment 
threw  his  disciples  into  complete  panic,  who  deserted 
him  and  fled  in  terror  to  hide  themselves  from  a  like 
fate.  That  the  majority  of  them  fled  into  Galilee  is 
indicated  from  Mark  16:7  and  John  21. 

17.  The  Two-fold  Trial  and  Death  of  Jesus.— (a) 
The  trial  of  Jesus  was  of  a  two-fold  nature:  first,  the 
ecclesiastical,  or  church  trial,  and  second,  the  trial 
before  the  civil  authorities.    It  was  the  policy  of  Rome 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  91 

at  this  time  to  extend  to  her  subject  provinces  as  much 
local  self-government  as  the  temper  of  the  people  per- 
mitted, with  especial  tolerance  on  matters  of  religion. 
All  religious  offenses  were  by  law  answerable  to  the 
Jewish  Sanhedrin,  but  if  a  prisoner  were  found  worthy 
of  death,  the  trial  must  be  repeated  before  the  Roman 
civil  authority,  usually  at  Caesarea  on  the  Mediter- 
ranean, but  in  Jerusalem  should  the  Roman  prosecutor 
happen  to  be  present.  The  Jewish  sentence  must  be 
sustained  by  him,  and  only  upon  his  express  approval 
could  it  be  carried  into  execution.  The  two  phases 
of  this  remarkable  trial  follow: 

I.  The  Ecclesiastical  (Church)  Trial: 
I.  Before  Annas  (John  18:13):  Just  why  Jesus 
should  first  be  conducted  before  Annas  is  not  plain, 
and  it  may  have  been  an  infringement  of  the  pris- 
oner's rights.  Annas  was  an  old  man  of  about  seventy 
years  of  age,  who  lived  in  one  of  the  official  palaces 
connected  with  the  administration  of  the  temple.  He 
was  ex-high  priest,  and  father-in-law  of  the  present 
high  priest,  Caiaphas.  Probably  he  was  the  actual,  if 
not  the  nominal,  controlling  religious  influence  in 
Jerusalem,  the  leader  of  the  old  reactionary  gang. 
Annas  sent  Jesus  bound  to  Caiaphas  (John  18:24). 

2.  Before  Caiaphas  and  an  Informal  Gathering  of 
the  Sanhedrin. — A  disciple  had  followed  Jesus  into  the 
palace  of  Caiaphas  (John  18:  15),  and  seems  to  have 
been  respected  there  (V.  15).  He  caused  Peter  to  be 
admitted  (18:16),  who,  however,  stood  without  the 
door  of  the  trial-room,  warming  himself  over  a  charcoal 
fire  (18:  16).  Here,  in  accordance  with  the  prediction 
of  Jesus   (John  13:38),  he  denied  to  the  maid  who 


92  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

kept  the  door  that  he  had  ever  heard  or  known  of 
Jesus  before,  repeating  his  denial  to  another  inquisi- 
tive servant  later  (John  18:25-27).  Then,  it  is  re- 
corded, when  Jesus  turned  and  looked  at  him  (Luke 
22:61),  he  recalled  that  prediction,  and  went  out  and 
wept  bitterly.  It  was  about  two  or  three  o'clock  in 
the  morning  when  Jesus  was  brought  before  the  high 
priest.  The  Sanhedrin  could  not  legally  conduct  court 
until  sunrise,  but  they  now  hurried  on  the  trial,  re- 
serving the  precaution  to  approve  it  technically  after 
sunrise,  which  only  took  a  few  minutes'  formality. 
Caiaphas  strove,  under  pressure,  to  get  Jesus  to  make 
some  incriminating,  haphazard  testimony  against  him- 
self, but  the  prisoner,  with  his  ever-admirable  self- 
possession,  calmly  remarked  that  his  words  and  deeds 
had  always  been  open  to  public  inspection  (John  18: 
19-21),  and  that  he  had  nothing  to  conceal.  Upon 
this  reply,  one  of  the  officers  present  struck  him  a  blow 
(John  18:22),  showing  how  much  justice  and  con- 
sideration might  be  expected  throughout  the  whole 
proceedings.  Then  Caiaphas  asked  him  if  he  were 
the  Son  of  God  (Mark  14:61).  Jesus  replied  in  the 
affirmative  (V.  62).  The  high  priest  rent  his  gar- 
ments as  a  token  of  horror  at  such  blasphemy,  and  the 
Sanhedrin  by  a  hasty  vote  condemned  him  to  death. 
Then  followed  an  orgy  of  shameless  abuse  and  bru- 
tality, an  explosion  of  long-restrained  Pharisaic  hatred 
and  fanaticism.  Among  other  things,  they  blindfolded 
him,  and  in  ridicule  of  his  claims  as  a  prophet,  asked 
him  to  identify  the  various  ones  who  struck  him 
(Mark  15:64). 

(b)  The  Trial  of  Jesus  Before  the  Roman  Authori- 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  93 

ties.— Leaving  Jesus  still  bound,  the  chief  priests,  eld- 
ers, scribes,  and  Sanhedrin,  after  another  conference, 
delivered  him  to  the  civil  authorities  in  order  to  try 
him  again  as  required  by  the  Roman  code,  and  to  get 
the  death  sentence  upheld  and  executed.  This  must 
have  been  between  six  and  eight  A.  M.,  and  here  fol- 
lows the  second  phase  of  the  trial : 

n.    The  Civil  Trial: 

I.  Before  Pontius  Pilate. — Pilate  was  the  sixth  pro- 
curator, or  Roman  governor,  of  Judea,  appointed  by 
Tiberius  Caesar  in  26  A.  D.  Pilate  had  had  consider- 
able trouble  with  his  Jewish  subjects,  who  objected 
to  his  bringing  the  silver  eagles  and  heathen  emblems 
of  his  soldiery  from  Caesarea  to  Jerusalem,  and  for 
five  days  they  stormed  his  palace  at  Caesarea  with 
furious  protests,  until  finally  he  yielded  to  their  de- 
mands and  ordered  the  offending  decorations  removed. 
This,  together  with  his  appropriating  temple  money 
to  build  an  aqueduct  to  bring  a  good  water-supply  to 
Jerusalem  from  the  Pools  of  Solomon,  had  caused  a 
number  of  minor  revolts,  one  of  which  is  referred  to 
in  Luke  13 :  1-5,  and  had  caused  Pilate  to  regard  his 
fanatical  subjects  with  deep  disgust.  So  unsuccessful 
was  he,  that  a  few  years  later  he  was  deposed  by  the 
Roman  emperor,  and  is  said  to  have  committed  sui- 
cide. Pilate  went  to  the  Judgment  Hall  earlier  than 
usual  on  this  Good  Friday  morning,  when  he  was 
aware  a  great  deputation  was  coming  with  a  prisoner 
for  trial,  doubtless  expecting  some  Passover  disturb- 
ance of  unusual  dimensions.  With  characteristic 
brusqueness,  Pilate  opened  the  proceedings  with, 
"What  accusation  bring  ye  against  this  man?"  (John 


94  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

18:29).     They  answered  gruffly:    *Tf  he  were  not  a 
malefactor  we  would  not  have  delivered  him  up   to 
thee"  (18:  30).    But  this  was  no  charge  at  all,  so  Pilate 
ordered  them  to  take  him  away  and  judge  him  accord- 
ing to  their  law  (18:  31).    Since  they  had  already  done 
this,  to  put  a  plausible  face  on  the  proceedings,  they 
accused  him  of  treason  to  Caesar  (Luke  23:2),  par- 
ticularly by   declaring  himself   a  king.     Pilate   then 
called  Jesus  aside,  and  asked  him  if  he  were  King  of 
the  Jews.    The  former  could  see,  as  could  even  a  blind 
man,  "that  for  envy  they  had  delivered  him"  (Matt. 
27:18).     Jesus  apparently  had  not  heard  the  latest 
accusation,  and  asked  Pilate  if  he  had  brought  this 
charge  himself,  or  whether  the  Jews  had  (John  18:  34). 
The  Roman  governor  assured  Jesus  that  could  not 
have  been  of  his  own  knowledge,  for  he  was  not  a 
Jew  (John  18:35).     Jesus  then  proceeded  to  explain 
that  his  kingdom  was  spiritual,  not  earthly  or  politi- 
cal, for  if  it  had  been  the  latter  his  servants  would 
have  waged  a  campaign  of  military  defense  (John  18: 
36).     Pilate,  apparently  not  grasping  the   idea  of  a 
spiritual    kingdom,    repeated    his    question    (V.    37). 
Jesus  more  in  detail  explained  that  he  was  a  king  in  a 
purely  religious  sense  (18:37).     Pilate,  being  a  prac- 
tical man,   impatiently   dismissed   these   abstractions, 
and  went  out  to  the  Jews  again.     He  acquitted  Jesus 
in  a  most  emphatic  and  unqualified  sentence:    "I  find 
in  him  no  fault  at  all"  (John  18:38).    This  caused  a 
wild  tumult  of  mob  fury  (Luke  23:5),  and  they  ac- 
cused him  of  stirring  up  sedition  all  the  way   from 
Galilee  to  Judea  (23  :  5).    Catching  the  word  ''Galilee," 
Pilate  sought  a  loophole  for  himself  to  be  rid  of  an 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  95 

extremely  annoying  incident.  If  Jesus  were  of  Gali- 
lee, he  would  be  under  the  jurisdiction  of  Herod  Anti- 
pas,  also  in  Jerusalem  at  that  time  (Luke  23  :  6,  7).  To 
Herod,  therefore,  Jesus  was  taken. 

2.  Before  Herod  Antipas. — Herod  had  long  been 
curious  to  see  Jesus  (Luke  23 :  8),  and  asked  him  many 
questions.  But  Jesus  looked  with  disdain  on  the  mur- 
derer of  John  the  Baptist,  this  petty  prince  who 
through  self-indulgence  and  cruelty  had  lost  his  last 
spark  of  manhood  and  character.  Getting  no  reply, 
Herod  contented  himself  with  throwing  over  the  shoul- 
ders of  Jesus  a  "gorgeous  robe"  (Luke  23:11),  and 
dispatching  him  again  to  the  court  of  Pilate. 

3.  The  Second  Trial  Before  Pilate. — When  Jesus 
was  brought  back  to  him,  Pilate  earnestly  sought  to 
secure  his  release,  a  desire  which  no  doubt  had  been 
increased  by  a  dream  of  his  wife  (Matt.  27  :  19).  Again 
he  tried  to  acquit  him  (Luke  23:  13-15),  and  possibly 
give  him  a  scourging  as  light  punishment  (V.  16). 
Then  followed  the  demand  that  Barabbas,  a  notorious 
criminal,  be  released,  according  to  the  custom  of  the 
Passover,  but  that  Jesus  be  crucified.  This  was  done ; 
Jesus  received  the  horrible  scourging  or  flagellation ; 
he  was  clothed  in  a  scarlet  robe,  wreathed  with  a  crown 
of  thorns,  and  given  a  reed  in  imitation  of  a  sceptre; 
and  taken  back  to  Pilate  for  formal  sentence  to  be 
pronounced.  Pilate,  hoping  that  the  sight  of  the 
weakened  and  blood-besmeared  prisoner  would  cause 
them  to  relent,  let  him  out  before  them,  saying:  "Be- 
hold the  man!"  (John  19:  5).  Seeing  that  he  was  still 
bent  on  releasing  Jesus,  the  Jews  played  their  last 
card.    "If  thou  let  this  man  go,  thou  art  not  Caesar's 


96  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

friend:  whosoever  maketh  himself  a  king  speaketh 
against  Caesar!"  they  shouted.  Pushed  to  the  wall 
finally  by  his  feeble  compromises,  and  recalling  that 
the  Jews  had  many  another  complaint  to  file  against 
him,  Pilate  became  a  traitor  to  those  principles  to  which 
he  had  formerly  with  such  firmness  adhered.  Bringing 
out  a  basin  of  water,  he  washed  his  hands  of  the  whole 
matter,  saying:  "I  am  innocent  of  the  blood  of  this 
just  person:  see  ye  to  it"  (Matt.  27:24).  The  re- 
sponse was  a  great  uproar :  **His  blood  be  upon  us,  and 
on  our  children!"  (Matt.  27:25). 

(c)  The  Crucifixion. — Although  Pilate  turned  Jesus 
over  to  Roman  soldiers,  who  alone  could  inflict  the 
penalty  of  death  under  the  Roman  provincial  laws,  the 
deed  was  assumed  freely  and  properly  by  the  Jewish 
authorities.  The  soldiers  took  off  the  scarlet  military 
cloak  which  had  been  put  on  him  in  mockery,  and 
arrayed  him  again  in  his  own  garments  (Matt.  2^'. 
31).  He  was  required  to  carry  his  own  cross,  and 
preceded  by  a  herald  who  proclaimed  the  crime  com- 
mitted to  the  public,  escorted  by  the  maniple  of  sol- 
diers, and  followed  by  "a  great  company  of  people" 
(Luke  23:27),  the  tragic  procession  started  on  the 
Via  Dolorosa,  or  "way  of  grief."  For  thirty  years  a 
carpenter  and  apparently  a  man  of  considerable  health 
and  strength,  as  we  have  seen  on  previous  occasions, 
Jesus  had  been  exhausted  by  loss  of  sleep  and  rest 
since  the  preceding  Wednesday  night,  by  the  nervous 
strain  of  his  several  examinations,  and  by  loss  of  blood 
from  the  scourging,  and  sank  down  from  the  weight 
of  his  cross.  He  carried  it  part  of  the  way  (John  19: 
17),  but  in  order  to  avoid  delay,  the  soldiers  impressed 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  97 

into  service  one  Simon  of  Cyrene  (possibly  a  colored 
man,  as  some  have  suggested,  since  Cyrene  is  in  mod- 
ern Tripoli),  "the  father  of  Alexander  and  Rufus" 
(Mark  15:21 ),  who  may  have  been  a  Christian  sympa- 
thizer, to  carry  the  burden  the  remainder  of  the  jour- 
ney. Many  interesting  legends  are  told  of  the  Via 
Dolorosa,  among  them  that  of  St.  Veronica,  who  gave 
the  condemned  prophet  a  towel  on  which  to  wipe  his 
face,  leaving  the  imprint  of  his  face  upon  it  afterward. 
Luke  alone  records  the  sympathy  expressed  by  the 
women  for  the  great  sufferer,  who,  however,  thought 
not  at  all  of  himself,  either  now  or  on  the  cross,  but 
only  of  their  tragic  future  (Luke  23:27-31).  The  in- 
famous procession  finally  halted  at  a  "place"  (not  a 
"hill"),  called  Calvary  in  Latin  (Luke  23:33)  and  in 
the  Hebrew  "Golgotha,"  the  place  of  a  skulL'(John 
19:17).  It  was  somewhere  outside  the  city  (John 
19 :  20),  and  near  a  highway  (Mark  15 :  29).  The  place 
of  a  skull  may  refer  rather  to  the  fact  that  it  was  the 
common  place  of  execution  rather  than  its  being  a 
skull-shaped  eminence  or  hill.  Several  of  the  world's 
great  painters  have  depicted  Golgotha  as  a  rocky  hill, 
and  Adam's  skull  lying  at  the  foot  of  the  cross,  on 
which  the  blood  of  Jesus  fell,  thus  redeeming  the 
human  race,  and  paving  the  way  for  the  universal 
resurrection  of  the  dead.  Here  Jesus  was  nailed  to 
his  cross,  between  two  common  thieves  who  were 
justly  paying  the  penalty  of  their  misdeeds  (Luke  23: 
41).  Crucifixion  was  the  fearful  method  of  capital 
punishment  provided  by  the  Romans  and  ancient  bter- 
barians  for  misdemeanors  deemed  worthy  of  death, 
particularly  for  slaves  and  the  lowest  elements  of  so- 


98  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

ciety,  among  the  crimes  punishable  by  it  being  mur- 
der, treason,  piracy,  and  revolt.     Cicero  speaks  of  it 
with  horror  and  detestation ;  and  it  was  officially  abol- 
ished by  Constantine  the  Great,  significantly  the  first 
Christian  emperor  of  Rome.     It  was  a  fierce  form  of 
torture,  accompanied  by  unquenchable  thirst,  and  fre- 
quently by  gangrene,  convulsions,  lockjaw,  paralysis 
of  certain  muscles,  fever,  and  swollen  blood-vessels. 
Sometimes    the    sufferer    lectured    and    exhorted    the 
spectators    on    certain    social    and    political    reforms ; 
sometimes   he  cursed   and  spat  at  his   executioners; 
sometimes  he  raved  and  cursed  in  agony;  and  some- 
times he  only  moaned  or  kept  silent.     On  the  cross, 
Jesus   was   silent,   except   for   seven   brief   sentences, 
spoken  only  for  comfort  and  blessing.    About  the  foot 
of  the  cross  circulated  beneath  his  dying  eyes  a  sea  of 
spiritual   mud :    dignified  priests  and   elders  taunting 
him,  the  Pharisees,  the  rulers  of  the  people,  many  of 
the  multitude  (Luke  23:35),  and  even  the  two  at  his 
side.     The  rulers  objected  to  the  inscription  on  the 
cross:    "JESUS  OF  NAZARETH,  THE  KING  OF 
THE  JEWS"  (John  19:19),  but  Pilate  peremptorily 
refused  to  change  it  (John  19 :  22).    We  may  sometimes 
wonder  what  pleasure  the  populace  got  from  the  pub- 
lic   executions,    yet   in   our    own    land   many    elderly 
people  are  still  alive  who  can  remember  when  it  was 
the   custom   for   the   whole   countryside   to   attend   a 
hanging,  and  to  take  their  lunches  with  them.     We 
may  wonder  at  the  horrible  nature  of  crucifixion  itself, 
yet  in  the  year  191 5  "Private  Peat"  recorded  that  some 
Canadian  soldiers  were  found  affixed   thus   to  barn- 
doors with  bayonets.     In  its  details,  history  repeats 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  99 

itself  from  time  to  time,  and  there  is  something  shock- 
ingly modern,  after  all,  about  the  physical  features  of 
the  death  of  Jesus  Christ.  The  seven  utterances  of  the 
cross  are: 

(i)  "FATHER,  FORGIVE  THEM;  FOR  THEY 
KNOW  NOT  WHAT  THEY  DO"  (Luke  23:34). 

(2)  "VERILY  I  SAY  UNTO  THEE,  TODAY 
SHALT  THOU  BE  WITH  ME  IN  PARADISE" 
(Luke  23:43). 

(3)  "MY  GOD,  MY  GOD,  WHY  HAST  THOU 
FORSAKEN  ME?"  (Matt.  27:46;  Mark  15:34). 

(4)  "WOMAN,  BEHOLD  THY  SON."  "BE- 
HOLD THY  MOTHER"  (John  19:26,  27). 

(5)  "I  THIRST"  (John  19:28). 

(6)  "FATHER,  INTO  THY  HANDS  I  COM- 
MEND MY  SPIRIT"  (Luke  23:46). 

(7)  "IT  IS  FINISHED"  (John  19:30). 

The  first  was  a  prayer  for  his  enemies,  as  he  taught 
his  disciples  to  pray  in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount 
(Matt.  5 :  44) ;  the  second,  a  word  of  promise  to  the 
penitent,  dying  thief,  celebrated  in  Cowper's  hymn, 
who  was  profoundly  impressed  by  the  nobility  and 
majesty  of  his  great  fellow-sufferer;  the  third,  a  repe- 
tition of  the  wdrds  of  his  great  ancestor  David's  lonely 
agony  (Psalm  22\  i);  the  fourth,  a  tender  regard  for 
the  future  happiness  and  welfare  of  his  mother;  the 
fifth,  a  natural  expression  of  physical  need,  for  which, 
however,  he  refused  relief,  choosing,  like  a  man,  to 
taste  the  bitterness  of  death  to  its  last  drop,  even 
though  the  law  allowed  some  relief  (Proverbs  31:6); 
the   sixth,   a   repetition   of   the   faith   of  his   ancestor 


100  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

David  (Psalm  31:5);  the  seventh,  a  victorious  shout 
of  triumph  over  his  enemies,  and  the  optimistic  sense 
of  having  completed,  within  three  and  one-half  brief 
years,  a  work  that  would  sometime  control  the  life  of 
the  world.  Then  follows  a  description  of  natural  phe- 
nomena :  the  noonday  and  afternoon  darkness  (Mark 
I5*33)»  the  earthquake  (Matt.  27:54),  the  resurrec- 
tion of  the  saints  (Matt.  27:52,  53),  and  the  length- 
wise tearing  of  the  veil  of  the  temple  so  that  all,  and 
not  alone  the  high  priest,  could  see  into  the  Holy  of 
Holies  (Matt.  27:  51),  symbolizing,  as  one  writer  tells 
us,  that  no  longer  was  priestly  sacrifice  necessary  for 
direct  communion  with  God  (Hebrews  10:19-21). 

(d)  The  Burial  of  Jesus. — The  fact  that  Jesus  died 
with  the  shout  of  a  victor  corresponds  to  his  statement 
found  in  John  10:  18.  But  somehow  in  the  purposes 
of  God  the  shedding  of  blood  is  always  necessary  for 
the  remission  of  sins,  not  only  individually  but  nation- 
ally. "The  wages  of  sin  is  death"  (Romans  6:23). 
Jesus  died  as  the  type  to  his  nation  of  the  Passover 
Lamb  slain  for  the  remission  of  sins,  and  for  all  who 
accepted  him  the  Passover  sacrifice  was  no  longer 
necessary  (Hebrews  10:3-14).  Jesus  died  about  three 
o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  and  the  Jewish  Sabbath  be- 
gan at  sunset.  The  burial  of  Jesus,  after  the  soldier 
had  made  sure  of  his  death  with  a  spear-thrust  (John 
19:34),  is  beautifully  recorded  in  John  19:38-42,  by 
one  who  purported  to  be  an  eye-witness  (19:  35).  He 
who  had  "nowhere  to  lay  his  head"  in  life,  in  death 
was  buried  in  another's  tomb  (Matt.  27:60;  John 
19:41). 

18.   The  Resurrection  of  Jesus  from  the  Dead. — In 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  loi 

"The  Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire,"  chap- 
ter 1 8,  Gibbon  says  that  the  resurrection  faith  did 
more  to  make  Christianity  a  propulsive  force  in  the 
ancient  Roman  empire  than  any  other  one  factor  in 
its  operation.  It  satisfied  the  human  heart  more  than 
the  breaking-down  pantheistic  and  nature  faiths  of 
which  the  Gentile  world  was  becoming  tired,  and  was 
beginning  to  regard  as  futile.  It  is  here  our  purpose 
to  present  two  views  of  the  Resurrection,  the  old 
traditional  and  a  modern  scientific,  and  to  allow  the 
reader  to  settle  the  question  for  himself. 

I.  The  Ancient  Traditional  View  of  the  Resur- 
rection. 

This  view  is  too  familiar  to  need  much  elaboration: 
the  angel  or  angels  rolling  away  the  stone ;  the  coming 
of  the  women  and  the  disciples  to  the  tomb,  which 
was  found  empty,  and  the  ten  recorded  appearances 
of  the  risen  Jesus  to  believers  during  the  forty  days 
subsequent  to  that  glorious  first  Easter  morning: 

a.  To  the  Women  at  the  Tomb:   Luke  24:9,  10,  12. 

A  test-case  of  the  angel. 

b.  To  Mary  Magdalene:    Mark  16:9.     A  test-case 

of  hearing  and  seeing. 

c.  To  Peter:   I  Cor.  15:5.    A  Test-case  of  at  least 

vision. 

d.  To  James:    I  Cor.  15:7.     A  test-case  of  at  least 

vision. 

e.  To  Two  Disciples:    Luke  24:  15-35.    A  test-case 

of  hearing,  seeing,  and  breaking  of  bread. 

f.  To  the  Ten,  Thomas  Absent:   Luke  24:36-43.    A 

test-case  of  hearing,  touch,  and  of  eating. 


102  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

g.  To  the  Eleven  Thomas  present :  John  20 :  26,  27. 
A  test-case  particularly  of  touch. 

h.  To  the  Seven  in  Galilee:  John  21:  1-14.  A  test- 
case  particularly  of  eating  and  social  commu- 
nion. 

j.  To  the  Five  Hundred:  I  Cor.  5:6.  A  test-case 
of  vision  by  a  multitude  of  witnesses. 

k.  To  the  Eleven  on  the  Mount  of  Olives:  Luke 
24 :  50.    A  test-case  of  vision  and  hearing. 

By  test-case  we  mean  tangible  proofs  offered  by  the 
Gospel  writers  from  oral  tradition  to  those  in  particu- 
lar who  had  believed  on  Jesus  previously.  Then  it  is 
recorded  that  the  glorified  body  of  Jesus  finally  rose 
from  this  earth  into  the  heavenly  realms,  leaving  his 
disciples  behind  to  fulfill  the  mission  bequeathed  to 
them  of  propagating  Christian  principles  among  all 
the  peoples  of  the  earth. 

n.  A  Modern  Scientific  Conception  of  the  Resur- 
rection. 

In  order  to  understand  the  Resurrection  story  per- 
fectly, it  is  necessary  again  to  recall  the  order  in  which 
the  documents  of  the  New  Testament  appeared  his- 
torically. They  are:  (a)  The  Letters  of  Paul;  (b) 
The  Synoptic  Gospels  and  Acts;  and  (c)  The  Fourth 
Gospel  and  General  Epistles.  Therefore,  it  is  from 
Paul  that  we  get  our  first  written,  earliest,  most  re- 
liable, and  nearest  in  point  of  time  to  the  event  itself. 
Resurrection  account.  I  Corinthians  (written  about 
57  A.  D.)  is  the  first  document  to  deal  at  some  length 
with  the  Resurrection  (Chapter  15).     It  was  written 


THE  CONTEI^TS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  103 

only  a  quarter  of  a  century  after  the  event  itself, 
probably  fifteen  years  before  Mark  wrote  the  Begin- 
nings of  Gospel  Story,  forty  years  before  Matthew 
and  Luke,  and  half  a  century  possibly  before  Acts, 
although  these  are  but  tentative  estimates.  It  must 
have  appeared  at  least  sixty  years  before  the  Fourth 
Gospel.  The  reader  will  doubtless  accept  the  follow- 
ing as  axiomatic:  that  whatever  Paul  teaches  about 
the  Resurrection,  we  may  confidently  accept  as  having 
been  the  teaching  of  the  Twelve  Apostles  and  the 
earliest  church,  for  Paul  himself  says  that  on  this 
point  he  and  the  Apostles  were  one. 

If  the  reader  will  read  carefully  I  Corinthians  15,  he 
will  note  the  phrase  "according  to  the  scriptures"  in 
verses  3  and  4.  Paul  very  boldly  and  without  any 
historical  or  descriptive  details  proclaims  the  Resur- 
rection of  Jesus.  That  Jesus  died  is  a  matter  of  his- 
tory ;  that  he  died  for  our  sins  is  a  declaration  of  faith 
rather  than  of  history.  That  Jesus  was  raised  from 
the  dead  Paul  knows  from  the  evidence  of  his  own 
sense  (V.  8) ;  but  that  he  was  raised  from  the  dead 
on  the  THIRD  DAY  he  knows  only  ^'according  to  the 
scriptures."  ^  Jesus  foretold  that  he  would  be  raised 
out  from  among  the  company  of  the  dead  on  the  third 
day  "according  to  the  scriptures"  (Mark  8:31;  9: 
9-13;  9-  31 ;  10:  34,  etc.,  basing  his  prophecy  on  Hosea 
6:2;  II  Kings  20:  5,  etc.).  Where  did  the  Old  Testa- 
ment scriptures  get  their  idea  of  "the  third  day"?  The 
answer  is,  of  course,  that  it  was  a  primitive  concep- 
tion introduced  into  Judaism  from  the  Persian  and 

^  C  R.  Bowen :  "The  Resurrection  in  the  New  Testament" 
(G.  P.  Putnam's,  1911),  p.  11,  et  seq. 


104  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

other  religions,  of  the  soul  hovering  three  days  over 
a  dead  body  before  taking  its  flight,  and,  more  par- 
ticularly, of  the  resurrection  of  life  in  springtime  after 
three  months  of  winter. 

Paul  bases  his  whole  testimony  of  the  Resurrection 
of  Jesus  on  the  subsequent  "appearances"  to  the  dis- 
ciples, and  not  because  he  has  known  of  an  empty 
grave.  In  none  of  the  Letters  of  Paul  is  any  mention 
made  of  an  empty  grave.  In  the  Book  of  Acts  no 
mention  is  made  of  the  disciples  preaching  of  an 
empty  grave ;  in  Jerusalem  they  never  visit  the  grave ; 
Paul  never  mentions  visiting  it.  Moreover,  bodies  in 
New  Testament  Palestine  were  buried  in  hillsides, 
and  not  in  the  ground,  so  that  "Come  forth"  (John 
11:43)  is  more  accurate  than  "Arise."  Jesus,  like 
Lazarus,  was  buried  in  a  rock  hewn  out  in  a  hillside. 
Therefore,  "being  raised  from  the  dead,"  rather  than 
referring  to  the  physical  body,  must  surely  refer  to 
the  soul  or  spiritual  body.  Paul,  in  fact,  vigorously 
combats  the  idea  then  beginning  to  creep  into  the 
Corinthian  church  that  the  Resurrection  has  to  do 
with  the  physical  body  (I  Cor.  15 :  35-56). 

The  Resurrection  then,  to  be  brief,  as  preached  by 
Jesus  himself,  by  Paul,  and  by  the  Twelve,  meant  that 
the  soul  of  Jesus  would  not  remain  in  the  underworld 
(Sheol,  or  Hades :  see  Acts  2 :  27),  but  would  rise  from 
thence,  out  from  among  the  company  of  departed  souls, 
and  escape  on  high  into  the  heavenly  realms."  ^ 

It  was  inevitable  that  the  tradition  would  crystallize 

1  The  "ascension"  of  Jesus,  therefore,  would  be  synchronous 
with  his  "resurrection,"  although  one  scientist  has  observed  that 
if  the  physical  body  of  Jesus  ascended,  it  has  not  yet  reached 
the  nearest  fixed  star. 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  105 

into  being  in  the  early  church  that  "being  raised  from 
the  dead"  was  the  equivalent  of  the  revival  of  a  dead 
body.  Was  Mark  then  to  blame  for  this,  since  he  is 
the  first  Gospel  w^riter,  and  writes  of  an  empty  tomb? 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  Mark  did  not  finish  his  Gospel 
after  chapter  16,  verse  8.  In  J.  Paterson  Smyth's  ad- 
mirable little  volume,  "How  We  Got  Our  Bible,"  ^ 
the  author  states,  in  a  first-hand  discussion  of  the  two 
oldest  New  Testament  manuscripts  in  existence,  that 
in  these  two  manuscripts  (the  Vatican  and  the  Sinaitic 
Mss.)  that  the  last  twelve  verses  of  Mark's  Gospel 
are  omitted.  The  Sinaitic  manuscript  is  yet  plain  evi- 
dence, for  it  ends  with  the  two  Greek  words  "epho- 
bounto  gar"  ("for  they  were  afraid,"  V.  8).  It  was 
finished  by  a  later  and  unknown  hand,  and  on  the 
work  of  this  meddler  are  the  accounts  of  Matthew  and 
Luke  based.  Why  was  it  finished  thus?  Because  it 
was  very  humiliating  to  give  an  account  of  the  anti- 
climax of  the  ministry  of  Jesus,  of  his  disciples  being 
thrown  into  a  terrible  panic,  and  of  their  fleeing  back 
to  Galilee,  as  the  Fourth  Gospel  account  intimates  all 
too  plainly  that  they  did ;  and  because  of  the  tradition 
that  the  Resurrection  had  something  to  do  with  the 
physical  body  of  Jesus, — a  thing  of  which  he  never 
dreamed.  Today  no  person  imagines  that  his  own 
body  will  physically  be  resurrected  from  the  tomb, 
for  we  have  the  burial  formula :  "Earth  to  earth,  ashes 
to  ashes,  and  dust  to  dust." 

Bodies  of  crucified  criminals  were  ordinarily  left 
hanging  on  their  crosses  to  be  destroyed  by  the  winds, 
rains,  heat,  birds,  and  beasts.     Josephus  says  that  in 

1  James  Pott  &  Co.,  N.  Y.,  1915,  pp.  16  and  20. 


io6  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

the  time  of  Jesus  thousands  upon  thousands  of  crimi- 
nals were  crucified  annually.    Jesus  had  no  reason  to 
expect  burial;  and  that  his  body  was  buried  was  due 
really    to    two    haphazard,    fortunate    circumstances: 
the  pity  of  Joseph  of  Arimathea,  and  the  admiration 
of  Pilate  for  the  man  of  Nazareth.     Jesus  left  no  in- 
structions to  his  disciples  at  all  concerning  his  "burial." 
The  Gospel  accounts  make  their  empty  tomb  nar- 
rative dependent  solely  on  an  angelic  visitor  or  visi- 
tors.    The  women  went  to  the  tomb,  remarking  on 
the  difficulty  of  rolling  away  such   a  monster  stone 
from  its  mouth.    Why  did  they  go?    Mark's  unfinished 
account  ^  says  to  anoint  a  body  which  had  lain  three 
days  in  the  grave  (compare  John  11:39).     Matthew, 
knowing  such  an  errand  to  be  improbable  in  such  a 
hot  climate,  remarks  that  they  went  simply  to  see  the 
tomb.     Luke  states  that  they  carried  spices,  but  fails 
to  state  for  what  purpose.    John  19 :  39  has  the  anoint- 
ing done  beforehand  by  Joseph  and  Nicodemus.     If 
their  errand  is  highly  improbable,  how  about  their  dis- 
covery upon  reaching  the  tomb,  as  Bowen  suggests? 
Without    angelic    assistance,    the    tomb    was    never 
opened.     The  body  of  Jesus  must  have  lain  therein 
until  it  went  the  way  of  all  flesh;  in  70  A.  D.  the 
Roman  invasion  destroyed  the  site. 

Then  what  does  Paul  mean  when  he  says :  "If  Christ 
be  not  raised  from  the  dead,  then  is  our  preaching 
vain,  and  your  faith  is  also  vain"  (I  Cor.  15:14)? 
Obviously  Paul  refers  to  the  Christian  doctrine  of  the 

^  B.  W.  Bacon,  "The  Making  of  the  New  Testament"  (Henry- 
Holt  &  Co.,  1912), _  on  p.  170  says:  'The  story  of  the  Empty 
Sepulchre  ...  is  quite  unknown  to  the  primitive  resurrection 
preaching,"  and  cites  I  Cor.  15 :  3-11. 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  107 

immortality  of  the  soul,  and  of  the  soul  of  Jesus  in 
particular,  which  had  made  its  escape  from  the  under- 
world into  heaven  (Acts  2:27).  Of  this  the  early 
Resurrection  faith  consisted.  Today,  if  we  believe  in 
immortality,  we  also  believe  that  Jesus  is  alive  as 
much  as  any  other  Christian  soul.  Is  this  not  a  su- 
perior conception  to  that  of  a  dead  body  reanimated 
and  going  through  all  sorts  of  efforts  to  prove  its 
material  existence? 

Then  when  the  risen  Lord  appeared  to  his  disciples 
back  in  Galilee, — a  marvelous  evidence  of  the  depth  of 
impression  made  by  that  master  personality  upon  all 
who  knew  and  loved  him, — they  went  forth  gladly  and 
fervently  to  preach  the  gospel  of  the  Resurrection. 

19.  A  Modern  Conception  of  "The  End  of  the 
"World." — In  Acts  2:22  the  disciple  to  whom  Jesus 
bequeathed  his  mission  spoke  of  the  Great  Teacher  as 
"a  man  approved  of  God."  The  Bible  does  not  gen- 
erally refer  to  man  in  derogatory  terms.  Man  is  made 
"in  the  image  of  God"  (spiritually  and  mentally,  not 
physically,  for  God  is  Spirit:  John  4:24);  and  Paul 
speaks  of  his  heathen  converts  at  Corinth  as  "temples 
of  the  living  God,"  and  "temples  of  the  Holy  Spirit." 
Lives  which  bless  the  world  are  all  therefore  recog- 
nized as  in  some  measure  divine.  Jesus  was  the  child 
of  his  own  particular  place  and  epoch,  and  shared  some 
of  its  incorrect  ideas,  such  as  demonology,  angelology, 
etc.  His  value  to  the  world,  however,  does  not  con- 
sist in  the  scientific  inaccuracy  of  his  conceptions  of 
nature,  but  in  his  unswerving  loyalty  to  truth,  his 
practically  perfect  character,  his  undying  moral  force, 
and  in  his  spiritual  enkindling  of  millions  of  lives  since 


io8  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

his  time.  He  was  divine,  if  ever  man  was.  In  him 
the  spirit  of  God  dwelt  practically  one  hundred  per 
cent.  "Heaven  and  earth  shall  pass  away,"  he  said, 
confidently  and  optimistically,  "but  my  words  shall  not 
pass  away."  His  influence  has  reached  down  into  the 
gutters  of  life,  and  picked  up  the  drunkard,  the  gam- 
bler, the  harlot,  the  thief, — human  driftwood, — and 
has  inspired  them  with  new  self-respect,  new  cour- 
age, new  faith,  new  ardor,  and  a  new  life.  "If  any 
man  be  in  Christ,"  said  Paul,  "he  is  a  new  creature: 
old  things  have  passed  away,  and  behold,  all  things  are 
become  new!"  Where  the  influence  of  Jesus  and  his 
doctrine  has  penetrated,  particularly  in  heathen  lands, 
barbarism  and  savagery  have  disappeared;  domestic 
life  has  been  purified;  diseases,  misery,  crime,  hope- 
lessness, squalor,  filth,  degradation,  and  cruelty  have 
vanished.  The  theologians,  however,  have  been  slow 
to  acknowledge  that  Jesus  had  human  limitations.  He 
dreamed  that  he  was  to  come  again  in  the  clouds  of 
glory  within  the  lifetime  of  his  own  generation  (Mark 
13-30)  to  judge  the  world.  Twenty  centuries  have 
rolled  by  and  that  expectation  has  not  been  fulfilled. 
And  although  Jesus  was  mistaken  in  his  literal  expec- 
tations, he  nevertheless  succeeded  in  bringing  to  pass 
his  real  mission,  the  end  of  the  reign  of  Mosaic  law. 
It  IS  quite  probable  that  the  world  will  never  come  to 
an  end  in  the  Biblical  sense,  for  we  must  recall  that 
the  ancient  Jews  lived  in  a  remote  and  superstitious 
age, — the  prescientific  era  of  human  history. 

20.  The  Coming  of  the  Kingdom  of  God. — Our 
world-order  today  is  doubtless  honeycombed  and  per- 
meated with  wrong  and  viciousness.    If  the  kingdom 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  109 

of  God  were  to  come  miraculously  today,  men  and 
women  everywhere  would  not  be  prepared  for  it.  Some 
will  always  be  on  the  wrong  side  of  the  door.  Jesus 
does  not  speak  of  the  kingdom  usually  except  in  fu- 
ture tense.  He  sought  to  keep  alive  the  consciousness 
in  the  human  heart  that  "man  does  not  live  by  bread 
alone,  but  every  word  which  proceeds  out  of  the  mouth 
of  God," — that  is  by  the  divine  fire  of  inspiration  which 
comes  of  God,  and  enables  the  Christian  to  keep  opti- 
mistic, inspired,  and  hopeful  in  the  routine  of  the  daily 
tasks  of  life.  Jesus  kept  aloof  from  most  social,  po- 
litical, and  legislative  problems,  because  he  was  not  as 
concerned  with  the  reshaping  of  men's  environment 
as  he  was  in  reshaping  men  themselves.  He  foresaw 
that  if  all  men  could  be  reformed  and  regenerated,  all 
external  and  mechanical  problems  of  government  and 
environment  would  naturally  and  automatically  solve 
themselves  and  cease  to  exist.  This  was  his  grand 
solution  for  all  the  problems  which  trouble  society ; — 
war,  divorce,  crime,  industrial  slavery,  government, 
legislation,  international  relationships,  and  so  on. 
Christianity  would  be  like  the  leaven  hid  in  three 
measures  of  meal  if  given  a  chance  to  operate.  There- 
fore conditions  of  entrance  loom  larger  in  the  mind 
of  Jesus  regarding  the  kingdom  of  God,  rather  than 
what  it  will  be  like  when  it  comes ;  and  "we,  according 
to  his  promise,  look  for  a  new  heaven  and  a  new  earth, 
wherein  dwells  righteousness  and  peace"  (H  Peter 
3:13). 


PART  II :  APPENDIX  A.  JESUS  WAS  A  RURAL 
PREACHER 

The  simple  pictorial  figures  with  which  Jesus  clothed 
his  teachings  reveal  him  as  a  rural  preacher,  just  as 
we  have  already  noted  that  his  numerous  allusions  to 
the  craft  of  carpentry  show  him  to  have  been  before 
his  ministry  a  laboring  man.  Some  of  the  allusions  to 
rural  life  are:  the  sower  in  the  furrow  (Matt.  13:3  et 
seq.)  ;  the  mustard-plant  (Matt.  13  :  31)  ;  the  farmer  at 
his  plow  (Matt.  9:  62;  Luke  17:  73) ;  the  injured  spar- 
rows (Matt.  10:23);  the  lilies  of  the  field  (Matt.  6: 
28,  29;  Luke  12:27);  the  red  glow  of  sunset  (Matt. 
16:2);  the  beggar  lying  at  the  gate  in  rags,  and  the 
dogs  licking  his  sores  (Luke  16:20,  21);  the  vine- 
yards and  vine-dressers  (Matt.  20:  i;  John  15:  i,  2); 
the  shepherd  following  his  sheep  (John  10:11-16); 
and  the  midnight  bridal  (Matt.  25:  1-12).  These  were 
common,  familiar,  objective  scenes  of  his  life,  and  were 
not  evolved  from  the  back  of  his  head.  The  fields 
"white  unto  harvest"  (John  4:35)  is  a  vivid  example 
of  a  landscape  lesson.  The  reader  will  contrast  this 
with  the  figures  of  speech  employed  by  Paul,  who  was 
a  city  preacher,  and  had  in  mind  usually  the  scenes  of 
busy  city  life:  the  athlete  in  the  arena,  the  soldier 
clad  in  armor,  and  the  architecture  of  edifices  built  on 
a  magnificent  scale. 

no  '•- 


PART  II:    APPENDIX  B.     SOME  OF  THE  EX- 
PRESSIONS JESUS  CHRIST  HAS  MADE 
PROVERBIAL 

"Blind  leaders  of  the  blind":   Matt.  15:  M- 

"To  strain  at  a  gnat  and  swallow  a  camel":    Matt. 
23 :  24. 

"Whited  sepulchres" :   Matt.  23 :  2J. 

"Easier  for  a  camel   to   go   through   the   eye   of  a 
needle":    Matt.  19:  24. 

"Wailing  and  gnashing  of  teeth"  :   Matt.  13  :  42,  etc. 

"The  strait  and  narrow  way" :  Matt.  7 :  14. 

"Solomon  in  all  his  glory" :   Matt.  6 :  29,  etc. 

"The  truth  shall  make  you  free" :   John  8 :  32. 

"Get  thee  behind  me,  Satan" :   Matt.  16:  23. 

"Fishers  of  men":    Matt.  4:  19. 

"Salt  of  the  earth" :    Matt.  5  :  13,  etc.  * 

"To  turn  the  other  cheek" :    Matt.  5 :  39. 

"Love  your  enemies" :    Matt.  5  :  44. 

"Rain  on  the  just  and  the  unjust":    Matt.  5:45. 

"Left  hand  knowing  what  your  right  hand  does": 
Matt.  6 : 3. 

"Serving  two  masters":    Matt.  6:24. 

"Casting  pearls  before  swine":   Matt.  7:6. 

"Wolves  in  sheep's  clothing":    Matt.  7:15. 

"By  their  fruits  ye  shall  know  them" :    Matt.  7 :  20. 

"Like  a  house  built  upon  the  sand" :   Matt.  7 :  26. 
Ill 


112  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

"New  wine  into  old  bottles":  Matt.  9: 17. 

"Revealed  unto  babes" :  Matt.  11:25. 

"Ninety  and  the  nine":   Matt.  18:  13. 

"What  God  hath  joined  together,  let  no  man  put 
asunder":    Matt.  19:6. 

"Many  called,  but  few  chosen":   Matt.  19:30. 

"Eleventh  hour" :   Matt.  20 :  6. 

"Stone  which  the  builders  rejected":    Matt.  21:42. 

"Render  unto  Caesar  the  'things  that  are  Caesar's" : 
Matt.  22:21. 

"Outer  darkness":    Matt.  22:  13. 

"Wars  and  rumors  of  wars" :   Mat.  24 :  6. 

"Unto  everyone  that  hath  shall  be  given":  Matt. 
25 :  29. 

"Sheep  and  goats" :    Matt.  25  :  32. 

"Watch  and  pray" :   Matt.  26:41. 

"They  that  take  up  the  sword  shall  perish  by  the 
sword" :   Matt.  26 :  52. 

"No  prophet  is  accepted  in  his  own  country" :  Luke 
4:24. 

**Tree  known  by  its  fruits" :    Luke  6 :  44. 

"Good  measure,  pressed  down,  shaken  together,  an'd 
running  over" :   Luke  6 :  38. 

"Out  of  abundance  of  heart  the  mouth  speaketh": 
Luke  6:45. 

"Wisdom  is  justified  of  all  her  children":  Luke 
7:35. 

"Gain  the  whole  world  and  lose  his  own  soul": 
Matt.  16:26. 

"Good  Samaritan":    Luke  10:33. 

"Putting  a  candle  under  a  bushel" :   Luke  11 :  33. 

"Hairs  of  your  head  are  numbered":    Luke  12:7. 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  113 

"Where  your  treasure  is  your  heart  will  be" :  Luke 
12:34. 

"Life  is  more  than  meat":    Luke  12:23. 

"Eat,  drink,  and  be  merry":    Luke  12:  19. 

"Go  into  the  highways  and  hedges":   Luke  14:  23. 

"Counting  the  cost":    Luke  14:28. 

"Prodigal  son":   Luke  15:  13. 

"Riotous  living":    Luke  15:  13. 

"The  fatted  calf":    Luke  15:23. 

"The  faithful  in  least  is  faithful  in  much":  Luke 
16:  10. 

"Purple  and  fine  linen":   Luke  16:  19. 

"It  is  more  blessed  to  give  than  to  receive":  Acts 
20:35. 

"He  that  humbleth  himself  shall  be  exalted" :  Luke 
18:  14. 

"Search  the  scriptures" :  John  5  :  39. 

"The  poor  you  have  always  with  you":   John  12:8. 


PART  II:  APPENDIX  C:  A  BRIEF  SKETCH  OF 
PALESTINE 

Palestine  is  and  always  has  been  probably  the  most 
unique  and  interesting  country  in  the  world.  It 
roughly  approximates  the  state  of  New  Hampshire  in 
shape  and  area.  Without  Perea,  it  contains  nearly 
9,000  square  miles.  The  Mediterranean  Sea  has  no 
natural  harbors  in  the  Holy  Land,  and  this  singular 
fact  is  responsible  for  the  historical  exclusiveness  of 
the  Jewish  race,  and  thus  it  largely  escaped  foreign 
contamination.  Yet  Palestine  is  the  gateway  from 
Europe  by  land  into  Egypt  and  Africa,  and  every 
great  world-conqueror  from  the  time  of  Alexander  and 
Pompey  down  to  December  11,  1917,  when  General 
Allenby's  British  army  wrested  Jerusalem  for  the  last 
time  from  the  Turk,  has  made  it  the  greatest  center 
of  military  activity  for  the  last  four  thousand  years. 
Palestine  has  every  climate  on  the  globe  within  its 
small  confines,  non-tropical  in  the  north  where  wheat 
grows  and  frost  comes,  and  tropical  in  the  south,  where 
the  lion  thrives,  palms  and  figs  grow,  and  frost  never 
comes.  The  River  Jordan  is  a  deep,  precipitous  can- 
yon, 180  miles  long,  falling  an  incline  of  eighty  miles 
from  the  Sea  of  Galilee  to  the  Dead  Sea,  and  is  widest 
at  Jericho.  The  Dead  Sea  is  1300  feet  below  the  sea- 
level,  and  is  the  lowest  spot  in  the  world.    Its  water  is 

114 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  115 

dense,  mineral,  and  crystal  clear,  with  a  specific  grav- 
ity too  great  to  swim  or  drown  in,  and  its  water  is 
the  saltiest  in  the  world,  highly  destructive  of  animal 
and  vegetable  life.  The  topographical  surface  of  the 
Holy  Land  from  west  to  east  is:  (a)  the  Mediter- 
ranean coastal  plain,  varying  from  seven  to  twenty 
miles  in  width;  (b)  the  foothills,  varying  from  three 
to  five  hundred  feet  in  height;  and  (c)  the  Lebanon 
Mountains,  from  two  to  four  thousand  feet  high.  In 
Palestine  the  rainy  season  is  from  October  to  May, 
and  the  dry  season  from  May  to  October,  when  it 
NEVER  rains.  Palestine,  thus  being  the  gateway  of 
the  Avorld  in  the  time  of  Christ,  was  the  strategic  point 
of  the  divine  plan  for  the  propagating  of  Christianity 
all  over  the  world. 


PART   III 
THE    LIFE    OF    PAUL 


PART    III 

THE  LIFE  OF  PAUL 

I.  The  Man  and  the  Time. — Every  critical  period 
in  the  history  of  the  world  seems  to  find  a  leader  to 
tide  it  over  the  crisis.  These  men  always  seem  di- 
vinely inspired  to  meet  the  emergency ;  they  ARE  di- 
vinely inspired,  if  we  believe  that  God  still  operates 
through  the  words  and  lives  of  good  men  and  women 
everywhere,  and  that  His  expressions  of  His  will  are 
not  confined  exclusively  to  the  pages  of  the  Bible. 
The  Jews  in  the  age  of  Jesus  attempted  "to  shut  God 
up  in  a  book",  and  to  imagine  that  He  said  His  last 
word  there,  a  blunder  that  well-meaning  but  mistaken 
people  still  frequently  make.  Jesus  overthrew  this 
doctrine,  and  proceeded  to  define  Christianity  not  as  a 
book  religion,  but  as  a  religion  of  ever-expanding  ser- 
vice (John  14:  12).  God  continues,  and  will  continue 
to  express  His  will  through  His  servants  everywhere. 
The  litany  of  saints  is  a  long  one.  It  is  not  confined  to 
any  race,  class,  color,  creed,  or  activity.  "It  is  a  spuri- 
ous patriotism,"  said  Charles  Evans  Hughes  at  the 
commencement  exercises  of  Wellesley  College  on  June 
14,  1920,  "that  is  linked  to  the  triumph  of  any  creed  or 
class,  or  becomes  the  vehicle  of  bigotry."  The  Boston 
clergyman,  who,  during  the  1920  tercentenary  celebra- 

119 


120  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

tlon  of  the  landing  of  the  Pilgrims,  spoke  on  *The 
Litany  of  American  Saints"  voiced  the  same  idea. 
Saints  are  those  who,  divinely  inspired  and  with  char- 
acter as  their  greatest  asset,  serve  the  greatest  number 
of  their  fellowmen.  Inevitably  this  must  transcend 
creed  or  class,  and  extend  much  further  than  the  pages 
of  the  Bible.  A  Paul,  a  Luther,  a  Francis  Xavier,  a 
Wesley,  a  Knox,  a  Thomas  Chalmers,  an  Aristides,  a 
Marcus  Aurelius,  a  Washington,  a  Lincoln,  a  William 
Bradford,  a  Jesse  Lazear, — all  these  served  the  age  in 
which  they  lived,  and  the  ages  to  come.  Joan  of  Arc, 
Toussaint  L'Ouverture,  Nathan  Hale,  Roger  Williams, 
and  countless  others  now  gone  are  on  humanity's  ros- 
ter of  saints.  It  is  a  common  platitude  that  Jesus  of 
Nazareth  came  in  an  age  of  social  and  political  unrest. 
Religion  was  dead ;  the  nature  religions  had  collapsed ; 
a  reign  of  dreary  formalism  had  set  in ;  spiritual  decay 
was  beginning  to  spread  like  a  dry  rot  throughout  the 
whole  world.  In  the  hour  of  world-crisis  there  emerged 
from  a  poor,  small  back-country  town  in  the  most 
obscure  province  of  the  ancient  world,  the  figure  of  a 
Carpenter  whose  character,  vision,  greatness  of  heart, 
and  inspiration  has  eclipsed  that  of  every  other  human 
being  who  has  ever  lived.  When  a  man  was  needed 
with  sufficient  education,  energy,  and  diplomacy  to 
embody  the  Christian  movement  into  the  history  of 
the  world,  to  rescue  it  from  provincialism,  to  make  it 
universal,  to  give  it  a  powerful  propulsion  into  the 
great  Gentile  spheres  of  influence  of  Rome,  Greece, 
and  Asia  that  lay  without  Palestine,  he  was  found  in 
the  person  of  the  apostle  Paul.  But,  similarly,  when 
God  wanted  a  man  to  strike  the  shackles  of  slavery 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  121 

from  three  millions  of  American  black  men,  he  went 
to  the  cornfields  of  Illinois  and  raised  up  Abraham 
Lincoln.    There  can  be  no  essential  difference  in  the 
inspired  mission  and  purity  of  motive  between  one  of 
humanity's  saints  and  another,  except  that  of  degree. 
2.    Early  Life  and  Advantages. — Paul,  or  Saul,  as 
he  was  originally  named,  was  not  a  Palestinian  Jew, 
but  a  Jew  of  the  Dispersion,  born  in  Tarsus,  Cilicia, 
a  seaport  town  of  Asia  Minor  (Acts  21 :  39  and  22 :  3). 
It  stands  on  both  banks  of  the  Cydnus  River  which 
roars  down  from  the  snow-capped  Taurus  Mountains, 
becoming  virtually  an  estuary  of  the  Mediterranean 
just  below  the  city  proper.     Here  was  that  seat  of 
Gentile  culture,  the  University  of  Tarsus,  and  though 
there  is  no  record  of  the  fact,  yet  Paul,  knowing  Greek, 
Hebrew,  and  Aramaic,  may  have  been  under  its  influ- 
ence directly  as  he  doubtless  was  indirectly.    In  Tar- 
sus   are    still    pointed    out    "St.    Paul's    Well,"  "St. 
Paul's  Tree,"  and  "St.  Paul's  House,"  traditional  spots 
of  interest  to  tourists,  like  the  Shakespeare  house  in 
Stratford  and  Shylock's  house  in  Venice.     Of  Paul's 
parents  practically  nothing  is  known  save  that  they 
were  "Hebrews  of  the  Hebrews"   (Philippians  3:5) 
of  the  tribe  of  Benjamin  (ibid),  and  strict  Pharisees 
(Acts  26:  5).    That  they  were  probably  well-to-do  and 
devout  Jews  is  apparent  from  the  manner  in  which 
Paul  was  educated,  his  later  religious  zeal  both  against 
and  in  behalf  of  Christianity,  and  the  piety  which  al- 
ways characterized  all  his  dealings  with  his  fellow- 
men.    The  date  of  Paul's  birth  is  a  mystery.     When 
Stephen  was  stoned  to  death  about  33  A.  D.,  and  his 
persecutors   laid   their   garments   at   Paul's   feet,   the 


122  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

Book  of  Acts  speaks  of  the  latter  as  ''a  young  man" 
(7:58).  About  62  A.  D.  when  Paul  took  his  appeal 
from  the  provincial  Roman  court  of  Palestine  to  the 
supreme  court  of  the  Emperor  Nero,  he  must  have 
been  sixty  years  of  age  or  past.  Later,  in  his  "prison 
epistle"  to  Philemon,  written  either  from  Rome  or 
Ephesus,  he  refers  to  himself  in  Greek  as  "old  Paul" 
(Philemon  9).  Probably  Paul  was  about  the  same 
age  as  Jesus.  Paul  had  a  married  sister  living  in 
Jerusalem  (Acts  23 :  16),  which  is  important  at  two 
points  in  his  career :  his  attendance  at  college  in  Jeru- 
salem, and  his  rescue  to  Caesarea.  Saul  was  Paul's 
Jewish  name ;  Paulus  was  his  Roman  citizenship  name, 
— a  fairly  common  name,  which  he  adopted  on  his  first 
missionary  excursion  into  the  Gentile  world  (Acts  13 : 
9).  Having  been  born  in  a  Gentile  Roman  province, 
Paul  received  certain  civic  privileges  and  immunities, 
among  which  were  (i)  Trial  by  Roman  law,  (2)  Free- 
dom from  dishonorable  penalties,  such  as  scourging 
and  crucifixion,  and  (3)  In  legal  trial  the  privilege  of 
supreme  appeal  from  provincial  court  to  the  Emperor. 
Of  all  these  Paul  later  took  full  advantage  in  the  hour 
of  need.  Although  Paul  was  acquainted  with  Greek 
culture  (Acts  17:28  and  I  Cor.  15:33),  he  always 
maintained  his  Rabbinical  Jewish  identity:  "Brought 
up  at  the  feet  of  Gamaliel"  (Acts  22:3)  is  quite  a  lit- 
eral expression  in  the  New  Testament,  while  in  our 
day  it  is  altogether  figurative.  Oral  repetition  while 
seated  on  the  floor  about  the  teacher  was,  and  still  is, 
a  common  Oriental  method  of  education.  Gamaliel, 
the  grandson  of  Hillel,  was  a  liberal  Pharisee,  an  ad- 
mirer of  Greek  culture,  and  is  known  outside  of  the 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  123 

New  Testament.  A  Jewish  boy's  education  was  voca- 
tional as  well  as  academic.  Jesus  learned  carpentery ; 
Paul,  tent-making  (Acts  18:3),  but  whether  as  a 
weaver  of  the  goat's-hair  canvas  or  a  maker  of  the 
tent  itself  is  not  clear.  This  trade  enabled  him  to  earn 
a  living^  wherever  he  went,  and  to  be  financially  inde- 
pendent of  the  churches  to  which  he  ministered. 

3.  Activity  Against  the  Christians  and  Conversion. 
— Paul's  early  training  and  later  education  naturally 
made  of  him  a  conservative  Pharisee.  He  "viewed 
with  alarm"  the  sect  of  the  Nazarenes,  finding  its 
doctrine  utterly  hateful  and  repugnant,  and  continued 
to  "point  with  pride"  to  the  law  of  Moses  and  the 
covenant  with  Abraham  as  the  sources  of  revealed 
religion.  There  are  said  to  have  been  three  hundred 
and  sixty-five  synagogues  in  Jerusalem  in  the  time  of 
Jesus  and  Paul,  the  Jews  from  outside  of  Palestine 
maintaining  their  own.  Doubtless  Paul  was  "one  of 
Cilicia"  who  disputed  with  Stephen  (Acts  6:9).  If 
so,  it  will  help  us  to  understand  his  conversion.  The 
martyrdom  of  Stephen  is  the  first  point  at  which  Paul 
breaks  into  the  New  Testament  narrative.  He  stood 
by,  guarding  the  clothes  of  the  executioners,  approv- 
ing the  deed  under  the  penalty  provided  by  the  law 
against  blasphemy,  but  unable  or  unwilling  to  cast  a 
stone  himself.  He  heard  the  dying  prayer  of  the  hero : 
"Lord  Jesus,  receive  my  spirit,"  and  "Lord,  lay  not 
this  sin  to  their  charge"  (Acts  7:59,  60),  and  the 
impression  made  must  have  been  deep  and  abiding. 
But  Paul  found  the  first  outlet,  nevertheless,  for  his 
energy  and  ability  in  assisting  in  the  persecution  of 
the    Christian    sect,    and    in    "making    havoc    of    the 


124  IHE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

church'*  (Acts  8:3).  In  Acts  9:  2,  the  phrase  "of  this 
way"  mdicates  that  the  Christians  had  not  yet  split 
off  from  the  Jewish  mother  church.  Saul  tried  to  "put 
out  the  fire  by  scattering  the  brands."  With  his  char- 
acteristic unflagging  zeal,  Paul  went  to  Caiaphas,  the 
high  priest,  for  letters  of  authority  in  the  synagogues 
of  Damascus  (Acts  9:2)  by  which  he  might  extradite 
all  members  of  the  sect  of  the  Nazarenes  back  to  the 
capital  for  trial  and  punishment.  It  was  on  the  road 
to  Damascus  that  the  highly  dramatic  incident  of 
Paul's  conversion  occurred  (Acts  9:4-7;  22:10;  26: 
14,  15).^  It  was  simply  the  reaction  of  an  inherently 
noble  nature  against  a  career  of  cruelty,  bloodshed, 
and  oppression.  That  is  all  the  expression  "It  is  hard 
for  thee  to  kick  against  the  goads"  (Acts  9:5)  can 
possibly  mean.  The  time  to  meditate  enforced  by  the 
long  journey  in  the  desert  between  the  two  cities  pre- 
cipitated a  physical  and  moral  reaction.  Paul  refers 
to  it  as  a  revelation  in  Galatians  i :  18,  but  in  I  Cor. 
9:1,  he  states  that  he  saw  no  vision,  but  the  risen 
Jesus,  since  there  is  no  evidence  that  he  saw  Jesus 
before  the  crucifixion.  As  a  matter  of  fact  it  was  prob- 
ably his  memory  of  Stephen  that  converted  Paul.  Cer- 
tainly he  had  heard  Jesus  described  sufficiently  well 
before  the  journey  to  Damascus.  After  his  conversion, 
Paul  was  never  the  same  man  again.  His  is  the  most 
remarkable  instance  of  what  Christianity  can  do  for  a 
man  in  the  pages  of  the  New  Testament.     Instead  of 

^  In  his  "The  Psychology  of  Religious  Experience"  (Houghton- 
Mifflin,  1910),  Edward  Scribner  Ames  reminds  us  that  Paul  was 
probably  a  neurotic,  and  that  for  men  of  temperaments  like  his 
and  St.  Augustine's,  the  dramatic  method  of  conversion  was 
entirely  possible  and  probable. 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  125 

the   proud,   cruel,   vain,   boastful,    pompous    Pharisee 
riding  in  triumph  upon  Damascus,  we  find  him  ever 
after  a  kind,  humble,  courteous,  sincere  Christian  gen- 
tleman.    His   energy  had  been   diverted  into   a  con- 
structive channel.     Paul  ever  afterward  spoke  of  his 
persecution  of  the  church  of  which  he  ultimately  be- 
came the  leader  with  great  humility  and  regret  (I  Cor. 
15:9,  10;  Gal.  1:13;  Phil.  3:6,  etc.).     In  Damascus 
Paul  stayed  in  the  house  of  Judas  (Acts  9:11),  was 
baptized  by  Ananias  (Acts  9:10-18),  and  was  intro- 
duced to  the   Christian  circle  by  Barnabas   (Acts  9: 
26  and  36),  the  former  still  fearful  that  Paul  might  be 
a  wolf  in  sheep's  clothing.     It  was  finally  determined 
that  Paul  should  go  as  an  apostle  to  the  Gentiles  (Acts 
9 :  15 ;  22 :  21 ;  26 :  17,  18),  since  it  was  obvious  that  his 
life  would  no  longer  be  safe  in  Jerusalem  or  Palestine 
for  any  but  the  very  shortest  periods  of  time.     For 
he  had  been  a  traitor  and  apostate  to  his  own  religion ! 
4.    The  Next  Fourteen  Years.— Wherever  possible, 
it  is  preferable  to  get  the  facts  of  Paul's  life  from  his 
letters.     The  Book  of  Acts  is  generally  vague  in  its 
chronology.     A  favorite  expression  of  the  author  is 
"many  days"  (Acts  9:  23).    After  his  conversion  Paul 
retired   into  Arabia   (Gal.   1:17-23)   to  formulate  his 
plans  for  the   Gentile  mission,  but  how  long  he  re- 
mained is  unknown.    He  lived  in  Damascus  three  years 
after  his  return   from  Arabia,   and   certifies   that  his 
account  of  his  life  is  true  as  stated  by  him  (Gal.  i :  20). 
After  three  years  he  had  to  leave  Damascus  (Acts  9: 
23-25;  II  Cor.  11:32,  33)  to  save  his  life.     He  spent 
two  weeks  in  Jerusalem  incognito,  where  he  saw  Peter, 
and  James,  the  brother  of  Jesus,  but  was  unknown  ex- 


126  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

cept  by  hearsay  to  the  Judean  churches  (Gal.  i :  22). 
Then  he  went  to  Tarsus  (Acts  9:30).  An  interim  of 
fourteen  years  is  passed  over  (Gal.  2:1),  except  that 
he  worked  and  had  some  harrowing  experiences  (11 
Cor.  11).  Meanwhile,  Antioch,  the  capital  of  Syria, 
has  become  a  strong  Christian  center,  the  first  great 
Gentile  center,  where  the  disciples  are  first  called 
Christians.  There  are  two  groups  of  Christian  com- 
municants at  Antioch:  (i)  The  Jewish  group  (Acts 
II :  19),  and  (2)  the  Gentile  group  (Acts  11 :  20).  Bar- 
nabas is  the  minister  to  the  Gentile  group  (11 :  22),  and 
sends  for  Paul  (11:25).  They  remain  here  a  year 
(11:26),  and  then  depart  on  the  First  Missionary 
Journey,  which  is  estimated  to  have  consumed  three 
years.  This  ends  the  period  of  fourteen  years  of 
Galatians  2:  i,  which  mentions  the  trip  to  Jerusalem, 
given  in  some  detail  in  Acts  15,  at  the  end  of  the  First 
Journey.  The  year  at  Antioch  and  the  three  years  of 
the  First  Journey  account  for  four  years  of  the  four- 
teen, leaving  a  blank  of  ten  years  which  must  be  passed 
over  by  Bible  students  insofar  as  historical  facts  of 
Paul's  career  are  available. 

5.  The  First  Missionary  Journey. — The  theme  of 
the  Book  of  Acts,  the  document  which  gives  us  most 
of  what  we  know  about  Paul's  biography,  is  the  rise 
of  the  Greek,  or  Gentile,  mission.  If  a  diagram  of  the 
Book  of  Acts  were  to  be  drawn  on  a  blackboard,  it 
would  best  represent  a  series  of  concentric  semicircles 
spreading  north  of  the  city  of  Jerusalem  as  the  com- 
mon center.  Each  semicircle  would  represent  a  geo- 
graphical phase  of  the  spread  of  the  Christian  propa- 
ganda  from   its   original   headquarters   in   Jerusalem. 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  127 

For  the  first  semicircle  (Acts  8:4),  Paul  himself  was 
directly   responsible.     The    second   is   represented   m 
Acts   9:2.     Acts    11:19   is   a   third   semicircle.     The 
fourth  is  the  territory  of  southern  Asia  Minor  covered 
by  the  First  Missionary  Journey  of  Acts  13-14-     The 
fifth  would  be  the  territory  of  the   Second  Journey 
(Acts   15:36  to   18:22)   extending  over  into  Europe. 
The  sixth  would  stretch  as  far  as  Rome    (Acts  28: 
16).     On  the  First  Missionary  Journey  Paul  started 
forth  with  Barnabas,  his  former  sponsor  at  Damascus, 
and  the  latter's  nephew  or  relative,  John  Mark  (Acts 
12:   25;  13:6;  Col.  4:  10).    The  three  start  to  the  isle 
of  Cyprus,  which  was  Barnabas'  old  home,  and  not 
virgin  territory,  from  Seleucia,  the  seaport  of  Antioch, 
Syria,  named  after  Seleucus  Nicator,  a  general  of  Alex- 
ander the  Great,  who  also  built  Laodicea.    At  Paphos 
the  seat  of  the  worship  of  Venus,  Paul  destroyed  the 
influence  of  Elymas,  a  professional  swindler  and  "sor- 
cerer,"  and   converted   Sergius   Paulus,    Roman    pro- 
consul,  who   is   also   mentioned   in    Pliny's   "Natural 
History."     It  is  noteworthy  that  in  Acts  13:  i,  2,  and 
7,  Saul  is  named  last,  but  in  Acts  13 :  9  he  changes  his 
name  from   its   conspicuously  Jewish   connotation   to 
that  of  the  Roman  "Paulus,"  becoming  thus  a  "citizen 
of  the  world" ;  and  in  Acts  13 :  13,  it  is  no  longer  "Bar- 
nabas  and   Saul,"  but  the   completely   revolutionized 
expression  "Paul  and  his  company."     Upon  reaching 
the  mainland  of  Asia  Minor  at  Perga  in  Pamphylia, 
John   Mark,  for  some  unknown  reason,  usually  con- 
strued as  cowardice,  deserted  his  two  elder  compan- 
ions (Acts  13 :  13),  leaving  them  to  go  their  way  alone. 
The  prospect  would  doubtless  have  daunted  a  less  stout 


128  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

heart  than  that  of  the  youthful  Mark.  In  order  to 
reach  the  plateau  tableland  of  this  vast  peninsula,  the 
snow-capped  Taurus  Mountains  must  be  scaled 
through  the  narrow  Cilician  gates.  Dens  of  robbers ; 
roaring,  precipitous  rivers  plunging  headlong  down 
the  rocky  cliffs  for  miles  and  miles,  with  few  or  no 
bridges  worthy  the  name  spanning  them;  solitary 
ledges,  lakes,  and  deserts ;  and  behind  all  a  population 
of  barbarians,  confronted  these  pilgrims  on  their  mis- 
sion. These  once  overcome,  the  Book  of  Acts  con- 
sistently throughout  describes  a  recurrent  scheme  of 
treatment  of  Paul  and  the  early  Christian  propaganda : 
preaching  as  strangers  in  the  synagogue  on  the  Sab- 
bath, while  on  week-days  quietly  working  at  the  trade 
of  tent-making;  conversions;  stirring  up  of  hostilities 
on  the  part  of  the  Jewish  residents;  physical  violence; 
and  finally  deportation  as  undesirable  aliens.  The 
First  Journey  covered  about  1400  miles,  one-half  of 
which  was  by  water.  It  Is  estimated  that  three  years 
were  consumed  in  making  it.  But  did  Paul  and  Bar- 
nabas visit  only  half  a  dozen  towns?  Iconium,  Lystra, 
Derbe,  Antioch  in  Pisldia,  and  Perga  were  apparently 
left  with  vigorous  churches.  Paul,  instead  of  making 
a  complete  circuit  of  the  peninsula,  retraced  his  foot- 
steps from  Derbe  back  to  Perga,  revisiting  the  towns  in 
which  his  life  had  been  imperilled,  which  act  in  itself 
was  sufficient  to  convince  his  converts  of  the  sincerity 
of  his  message.  Some  scholars,  like  Bernard  Pick, 
have  imagined  that  Paul  was  imprisoned  for  a  time  in 
Iconium,  but  this  must  remain  an  open  question.  The 
conclusion  of  this  journey,  in  which  Paul  acknowledged 
his   dependence   on   the   Jerusalem    church,   ends   the 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  129  _ 

period  of  fourteen  years  mentioned  in  Gal.  2-.  i.  Here^ 
thin  follows  in  Acts  15,  the  famous  tr>p  to  Jerusalem 
of  Gal  2-  I  The  four  preceding  years  are  roughly 
ccoutted  for,  one  at  Antioch.  three  on  the  F>rst  our- 
ney,  leaving  a  blank  of  ten  years   (Gal.  2.1)  unac 

counted  for.  ,  r  .   r,a1     2  • 

6.   The  Council  at  Jerusalem.-( Acts   ^S,  Gal^   2. 
,.xo).    There  is  a  great  mass  of  hterature  on  the  sU^- 
ing  discrepancies  of  Acts  15  and  Gal  2.1-10.     Paul 
was  at  the  Council;  the  author  of  Acts  apparently  was 
Tot     Paul  is  concerned  mainly  with  brmgmg  out  the 
historical  facts  and  the  truth     Galat.ans  ^^^^^ 
with  very  obvious  vexation,  for  Paul  says.    An  agree 
ment  was  reached,  and  we  shook  hands  upon  it    (Gal. 
To)     Titus  is  not  mentioned  in  Acts;  m  Galatians 
2    he  is  held  up  as  a  sample  convert  of  the  case  m 
n'oint     It  the  external  rites  and  ceremonies  of  Judaism 
ar     necessary   to   becoming   a    good   Christian     then 
^^rof  Paurs  work  has  been  already  Ja  s^a"d  van. 
Therefore,  a  compromise  was  reached :  (i )  Jhe  Jewish 
iroup  was  to  come  into  the  church  on  the  basis  of 
SuaHsm  if  they  so  desired;   (2)  the  Genti^  group 
might  enter  without  the  Jewish  rites  (Gal.  2 . 9).    Paul 
foresaw  that  in  the  last  analysis  there  could  be  no 
dTverglnce  in  Christian  principle  between  Gentile  and 
Jew.     Ordinarily  a  strict  Jew  would  not  eat  at  the 
same  table  with  a  Gentile  for  the  latter  was  not  cere- 
monially pure.    The  question  was:    what  was  to  be 
the  future  relationship  of  these  two  groups?     Was 
Christianity    common    ground    enough    to    obliterate 
eve'ually'this  prejudice?     Paul  foresaw  the  verdict 
of  history,  but  was  broad  enough  to  make  a  compro- 


130  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

mise  to  meet  the  present  emergency.  'Tf  salvation 
come  by  THE  LAW,"  said  he,  "then  Christ  died  for 
nought"  (Galatians  2:21).  It  was  agreed  at  this 
council  that  Paul  and  Barnabas  should  go  to  the  Gen- 
tiles, and  Peter,  James,  John,  and  so  forth,  to  the  Jews. 
It  is  notable  that  wherever  we  meet  the  Apostle  Peter 
in  the  New  Testament,  he  is  always  the  same :  impul- 
sive, rash,  emotional,  yet  amenable  to  reason  appar- 
ently, his  conclusions  always  being  followed  by  an 
opposite  reaction  (Gal.  2:11,  12).  He  is  always  get- 
ting a  rebuke,  either  from  Jesus  or  Paul.  The  Book 
of  Acts  shows  Peter  as  impulsive  and  active,  engaged 
commonly  in  some  form  of  Christian  propaganda,  too 
often  with  a  seeming  lack  of  fixed  principles.  He 
visits  Antioch  after  the  Council  at  Jerusalem,  and 
eats  with  the  Gentiles;  but  when  a  messenger  from 
James,  bishop  of  Jerusalem,  arrives,  he  swings  back  to 
the  Jews,  even  Barnabas,  apostle  to  the  Gentiles,  being 
carried  away  by  the  sudden  reactionary  impulse  (Gal. 
2:  13).  Acts  15  dovetails  into  one  account  several  dis- 
cussions continued  over  a  lengthy  period,  with  Paul 
both  present  and  absent.  The  final  "decrees"  repre- 
sent the  culmination  of  the  discussions  on  ceremonial 
diet  rather  than  the  original  problem  of  the  Gentiles 
becoming  Christians  via  the  Old  Testament  church 
with  its  cumbrous  ceremonialism.  Galatians  2  clings 
tenaciously  and  pointedly  to  the  original  question, 
while  Acts  15  blends  the  solution  of  various  questions 
presented  in  the  council.  The  Jewish  Christian  church 
at  this  very  point  begins  to  dry  up  at  its  source,  and 
the  living  church  is  Paul's  church  by  the  end  of  the 
first  century  A.  D.    With  Acts  15,  Peter  and  Barnabas 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  131 

vanish  from  the  New  Testament  narrative.  From  this 
point  on  the  Book  of  Acts  is  a  spotlight  turned  upon 
Paul  and  his  labors,  while  the  church  at  Jerusalem  is 
staged  ever  after  in  darkness.  But  it  is  not  to  be  sup- 
posed that  the  Council  at  Jerusalem  settled  once  and 
for  all  the  question  Paul  sought  to  have  settled.  Paul 
was,  in  fact,  tormented  all  his  life  by  the  extreme  reac- 
tionary wing  of  fanatical  Jews,  who  followed  in  his 
wake,  crept  into  his  churches,  and  whispered  to  his 
converts  that  he  was  deceiving  them.  They  threw 
his  churches  into  confusion  and  doubt,  as  the  scathing 
arraignment  of  their  activities  by  Paul  in  Galatians 
too  well  evidences.  They  plotted  secretly  and  openly 
against  the  apostle's  life  until  it  is  almost  a  miracle 
that  he  lived  to  complete  his  mission  as  well  as  he  did. 
But  he  triumphed,  and  his  views  have  become  the 
verdict  of  history. 

7.  The  Second  Missionary  Journey. — Paul  is  now 
independent  of  the  Jerusalem  church  absolutely,  ex- 
cept that  he  remembers  his  promise  to  the  poor  of 
the  Palestinian  Jewish  churches  (Gal.  2:  10;  Acts  24: 
17).  Acts  hereafter  deals  almost  exclusively  with 
Paul,  and  in  16:  10  drops  suddenly  into  the  first  per- 
son (one  of  the  "We-Sections"),  indicating  first,  that 
it  is  a  sort  of  diary,  and  second,  that  the  author,  Luke 
(or  possibly  Titus),  joined  Paul's  party  at  that  point. 
Paul  proceeds  to  visit  the  churches  of  the  first  jour- 
ney, and  at  Lystra  picks  up  Timothy,  who  becomes 
ever  after  one  of  his  dearest  companions  (Philippians 
2:19-24).  The  ''impulsion"  is  ever  westward  (Acts 
16:7),  and  little  is  said  of  churches  and  missionary 
work  on  the  continent  of  Asia.     Galatians  4:  13  tells 


132  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

us  that  he  was  compelled  to  stop  for  a  time  on  account 
of  illness,  doubtless  his  "thorn  in  the  flesh"  (literally, 
"a  sharp  stake  driven  through  the  flesh")  of  H  Cor. 
12 : 7.  In  the  latter  verse  the  English  v^ord  "buffet" 
in  the  Greek  is  the  cruder  "knock  down,"  which  indi- 
cates a  physical  obsession  like  epilepsy,  or  "falling 
sickness."  Another  indication  in  favor  of  the  epileptic 
theory  is  the  language  of  Galatians  4:  14,  where  the 
English  word  "rejected"  in  the  Greek  is  literally  "spit 
out  at."  People  spit  on  the  ground  in  Paul's  day 
whenever  witnessing  an  epileptic  convulsion  to  ward 
off  demonic  influence  supposed  to  cause  that  disease, 
much  as  ignorant  peasants  today  cross  their  fingers  to 
ward  off  the  "evil  eye."  There  are  abundant  evidences 
in  Paul's  own  writings  as  well  as  in  Acts  that  he  was 
an  epileptic  and  a  neurotic.  Witness  the  trance  of 
Acts  22:  17,  the  visions  and  infirmities  of  H  Cor.  12: 
i-io,  and  the  dramatic  and  peculiar  manner  of  his  con- 
version (Acts  9 :  1-9 ;  22  :  5-1 1 ;  26 :  9-20).  His  constant 
references  to  weakness  and  physical  distress,  his  exalted 
and  nervous  manner  of  speaking,  his  collapses  in  a  state 
of  great  excitement,  as  when  he  first  saw  the  magnitude 
of  his  task  at  Corinth  (I  Cor.  2:3),  indicate  a  now 
conscious,  now  subconscious,  realization  of  his  afflic- 
tion. Biblical  scholars  have  advanced  other  theories: 
deafness,  malaria,  sick  headache,  opthalmia,  disfigur- 
ing disease,  etc.,  to  explain  the  "thorn  in  the  flesh," 
but  epilepsy  seems  to  be  the  most  plausible  and  likely 
equivalent. 

There  were  at  least  four  in  Paul's  party,  Paul,  Silas, 
Timothy,  and  Luke  (Acts  16:  10),  at  Troas,  probably 
in  autumn  of  51  A.  D.     When  Paul  and  his  party 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  133 

crossed  the  Aegean,  the  status  of  the  modern  world 
was  definitely  settled,  for  it  meant  that  Europe  and 
America,  not  Asia  and  the  Orient,  would  first  become 
Christian.  Troas  was  historic  ground  already.  The 
poet  Horace  had  said  that  if  Troy  were  to  be  rebuilt, 
like  the  African  Carthage,  its  strategic  position  would 
undermine  in  time  the  domination  of  Rome  over  the 
ancient  world.  It  was  here  that  Xerxes  and  his  three 
million  Asiatics  made  a  futile  attempt  to  overrun 
Europe.  Here  the  Homeric  heroes  are  alleged  to  have 
fought  and  bled  because  of  ''the  face  that  launched  a 
thousand  ships."  And  here  the  spiritual  destiny  of 
modern  civilization  was  determined  by  a  handful  of 
men. 

(a)  Philippi,  or  "Philip's  Town"  was  the  first  place 
of  any  importance  where  a  halt  was  made.  Paul's  stay 
here  was  indefinite  (Acts  16:  12).  There  was  no  Jew- 
ish colony  or  synagogue  in  this  place,  and  the 
proseucha  by  the  riverside  was  the  only  place  of  wor- 
ship. The  first  converts  in  Europe  were  women. 
Lydia  sold  madder-root,  or  some  form  of  dye-stufif. 
Paul  and  Silas  were  arrested,  beaten,  and  thrown  into 
prison  here,  even  though  Roman  citizens,  and  at  first 
opportunity  Paul  hurled  a  thunderbolt  at  the  police- 
magistrates  (Acts  16:  37),  that  they  were  destined  not 
soon  to  forget.  Paul  again  refers  to  this  in  I  Thes. 
2 : 2.  Paul's  church  at  Philippi  was  his  best-beloved 
church,  and  to  them  he  writes  his  most  cordial  and  af- 
fectionate letter  (Phil.  1:3,  4;  2:12,  15;  4:1,  19,  23* 
etc.).  Paul  left  a  considerable  church  at  Philippi. 
More  conversions  are  named  (Phil.  4:2,  3),  and  from 
now  on  it  becomes  imperative  to  supplement  the  ac- 


134  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

count  in  Acts  with  names  and  details  from  Paul's  own 
letters.  Repeatedly  Paul  accepts  money  from  Philippi 
(Phil.  4:  15,  16),  as  he  will  do  from  no  other  church. 
The  Letter  to  the  Philippians  was  written  to  them  in 
acknowledgment  of  gifts,  and  especially  to  Epaphro- 
ditus.  In  this  connection,  the  letter  might  profitably 
be  read. 

(b)  Thessalonica,  100  miles  south  of  Philippi,  the 
modern  Salonica  or  Saloniki,  and  the  second  city  of 
European  Turkey,  was  the  second  main  stop  of  Paul's. 
It  was  the  capital  of  Macedonia,  and,  unlike  Philippi, 
contained  a  goodly  proportion  of  Jews.  Thessalonica 
speedily  became  a  sort  of  Christian  headquarters  (I 
Thess.  1:8),  and  has  maintained  a  powerful  Chris- 
tian church  from  Paul's  day  to  the  present,  Islam  hav- 
ing been  unable  to  make  any  permanent  inroads.  Here 
Paul  proceeded  "to  turn  the  world  upside  down"  (Acts 
17:6),  and  met  with  the  same  old  program  of  oppo- 
sition, although  no  Jews  are  mentioned  in  I  Thessa- 
lonians.  Acts  gives  us  a  very  incomplete  and  unsatis- 
factory account  of  Paul's  stay  in  Thessalonica.  For 
instance,  Jason  is  introduced  very  abruptly  into  the 
account  (Acts  17:  5),  without  any  explanation  or  clue 
as  to  his  identity.  But  I  Thessalonians  gives  us  a 
somewhat  fuller  idea  of  the  missionary  trials  at  Thes- 
salonica. It  should  be  read  in  this  connection.  Ap- 
parently the  Thessalonians  had  "turned  unto  God  from 
i4ols"  (I  Thess.  1:9;  2:  14),  for  the  Gentile  audience 
required  everything  from  the  ground  up :  God,  moral- 
ity, a  new  basis  of  family  life,  respect  for  the  human 
body,  and  the  A-B-C  of  personal  decency,  all  of  which 
the  Jewish  audience  already  possessed.    Some  of  Paul's 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  135 

Thessalonian  converts  were  Aristarchus  and  Secundus 
(Acts  19:29;  20:4;  27:2;  Col.  4:10;  Philemon  24;, 
and  Jason  (Acts  17:5;  Romans  16:21).     While  here 
Paul  received  financial  help  from  Philippi  (Phil.  4:  i5)- 
(c)  Berea.— Forced  to  leave  Thessalonica  by  hostile 
Jews,  Paul  and  his  company  came  to  Berea,  where 
they  met  the  usual  program  of  hostilities,  this  time 
incited  by  Jews  who  followed  the  missionaries  thither 
from  Thessalonica   (Acts   17:  i3)-     Paul  alone  is  de- 
ported to  Athens  to  wait  for  Silas  and  Timothy,  the 
latter  having  been  sent  back  from  Berea  to  Thessa- 
lonica by  the  Apostle  to  find  out  how  the  church  there 
was  faring  (Acts  17:15;!  Thess.  3  :  2).    Paul  has  heard 
of  a  persecution  at  Thessalonica  since  leaving  there, 
and  is  fearful  that  the  little  church  will  be  torn  out 
by  the  roots  (I  Thess.  2:  17,  18;  3:4).     Paul  sends  a 
letter— I    Thessalonians— written   from    Athens    after 
receiving  word  from  Timothy  that  they  have  success- 
fully withstood  all  hostile  opposition  (I  Thess.  3:6). 
At  this  point,  bearing  these  facts  in  mind,  it  will  be 
well  to  read  I  Thessalonians,  Paul's  first  epistle,  which 
is  short  and  will  virtually  explain  itself  in  the  light  of 
what  has  been  said.    Sopater  (Acts  20:  4;  Romans  16: 
21)  is  a  typical  Berean  convert  of  Paul's. 

The  First  Letter  to  the  Thessalonians  (A) 

This  letter  was  not  named  I  Thessalonians  by  Paul 
himself,  but  by  editorial  compilers.  In  the  Greek  New 
Testament  the  longer  letter  is  called  "alpha"  and  the 
shorter,  "beta."  The  letter  reveals  conspicuously  the 
motive  for  its  having  been  written.  Was  it  written 
in   reply   to   a   letter   from   the   Thessalonians?     This 


136  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

view  has  been  taken  by  critics  like  Rendel  Harris, 
Eleanor  Wood,  and  Bacon,  but,  of  course,  is  merely 
speculative.  The  letter  is  short,  easy  to  read,  and  di- 
vides very  neatly: 

I.     The  Personal  Division.    (Chapters  1-3). 

A.  Chap.  I :  Praise  for  the  Thessalonians, 
personal,  hearty,  and  tactful. 

B.  Chap.  2:  1-16:  Paul's  personal  defense. 

C.  Chap.  2:  17-3:13:  A  description  of  the 
present  situation,  and  the  circumstances  of 
writing. 

II.    The  Doctrinal  Division.     (Chapters  4-5). 

A.  Chap.  4:  1-12:  Christian  conduct  out- 
lined. 

B.  Chap.  4:13-5:11:  Eschatology,  or  "the 
end  of  the  world." 

C.  Chap.  5:  12-18:  Closing  advice. 

Note  again  two  characteristics  of  the  Thessalonians : 
(i)  They  were  heathen  ("Ye  turned  unto  God  from 
idols":  1:9);  and  (2)  they  had  a  certain  disorderly, 
unruly  element  among  their  number  whose  conduct 
apparently  did  not  meet  with  Paul's  full  approval  as 
Christian  citizenship  (4:11)5:  12-14). 

Let  us  also  read  in  this  connection  the  Second  Let- 
ter to  the  Thessalonians,  which  has  only  three  brief 
chapters,  and  presents  some  marked  peculiarities  which 
cast  some  doubt  on  its  being  genuinely  Pauline. 

The  Second  Letter  to  the  Thessalonians   (B) 

The  Second  Letter  to  the  Thessalonians  resembles 
the   first   letter   strikingly.      It    contains    the    same   his- 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  137 

torical  and  doctrinal  themes  in  the  same  order  and 
the  same  language,  mentions  the  same  unruly  and  dis- 
orderly elements  dwelt  upon  in  the  first  letter,  and  re- 
calls the  fact  that  the  Apostle  Paul  earned  his  own 
living  while  among  the  Thessalonians  in  spite  of  the 
fact  that  he  was  minister  to  the  church.  This  letter 
contains  825  words,  of  which  more  than  150  are  iden- 
tical in  grammatical  structure  (in  the  Greek)  with 
those  in  the  first  letter.  A  careful  reading,  however, 
and  comparison  with  the  first  letter  confirms  the  sus- 
picion that  n  Thessalonians  is  merely  a  pale  reflex  of 
I  Thessalonians.  It  appears  to  be  pseudo-Pauline,  writ- 
ten probably  by  a  Pauline  Christian  or  disciple,  in  an 
efitort  to  correct  effectively  some  prevalent  misconcep- 
tion in  the  church  as  Paul  would  do  if  he  were  living. 
A  reading  of  the  letter  discloses  what  the  misconcep- 
tion was.  The  church  had  been  receiving  forged  let- 
ters which  had  given  a  false  impression  of  the  his- 
torical phenomena  which  were  to  precede  the  "end  of 
the  world"  (I  Thess.  2:  1-12).  It  cannot  be  too  often 
repeated,  however,  that  it  was  perfectly  permissible 
in  ancient  times  for  disciples  of  ancient  philosophers 
and  teachers  to  forge  the  names  of  the  latter  thus  to 
the  documents.  The  same  problem  exactly  is  pre- 
sented by  the  Shakespeare  apocrypha  ("Pericles,"  etc.) 
and  pseudo-Plato.  These  documents  usually  reveal  the 
fact  that  they  are  written  by  men  of  inferior  power, 
personality,  and  ability.  The  genuineness  of  II  Thes- 
salonians is,  of  course,  an  open  question.  Von  Soden, 
Peake,  Moflfatt,  and  McGiflFert  point  out  the  similari- 
ties of  the  two  letters  in  "tables"  of  resemblance. 
Jiilicher,  Drummond,  Burton,  and  Goodspeed  think  it 


138  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

Pauline,  but  inferior  in  spiritual  value.  Harnack  thinks 
that  it  is  Pauline,  but  considerably  excised  and  inter- 
polated by  later  hands. 

Briefly,  the  arguments  that  it  is  pseudo-Pauline  are : 

1.  It  is  much  less   fresh  and  warm  in  tone  than 

I  Thessalonians.  It  is  more  judicial  and  deliberate  in 
tone.  Note  the  salutation,  which  seems  pseudo- 
Pauline:  "We  are  bound  to  give  thanks  for  you,"  etc. 
(II  Thess.  1:3). 

2.  It  assumes  a  distinct  tone  of  authority.  Com- 
manding, rather  than  the  old  familiar  Pauline  "be- 
seeching" of  the  first  letter,  becomes  the  key  to  action. 

3.  The  use  of  the  word  "traditions"  (II  Thess. 
2:15  and  3:6)  is  glaringly  conspicuous.  This  word 
means  always  in  the  Bible,  a  body  of  authoritative 
teachings,  usually  if  not  always,  ancient.  Paul  uses 
this  word  in  three  places  (Gal.  I:  14;  Col.  2:8;  I  Cor. 
11:2)  in  its  proper  definition.     Would  he  use  it  in 

II  Thessalonians  to  refer  to  his  own  doctrine?  We 
think  not.  If  we  assume,  however,  that  this  epistle  is 
pseudo-Pauline,  then  the  word  is  used  in  a  more  nearly 
correct  sense  by  a  Pauline  Christian  who  models  after 
I  Thessalonians  as  he  writes. 

4.  The  letter  consciously  alludes  to  forgeries  of  let- 
ters (II  Thess.  2:  2). 

5.  In  II  Thess.  3 :  17,  the  writer  clevely  conceals  on 
the  surface,  which  was  allowable  in  his  day,  the  fact 
that  the  epistle  is  pseudo-Pauline.  The  word  "sign" 
or  "token"  in  3:  17  is  an  assurance  that  the  letter  is 
genuine.  That  counterfeits  are  possible  is  consciously 
referred  to  (2:2);  that  they  will  be  frequent  is  also 
asserted  (2 :  15  ;  3  :  14).    The  writer  is  so  self-conscious 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  139 

throughout  on  the  forgery  proposition  that  he  practi- 
cally betrays  himself. 

6.  The  great  sweeping  argument  against  the  Paul- 
ine authorship  of  H  Thessalonians  by  all  odds  is  the 
famous  antichrist,  or  "man  of  sin"  passage  (2:  1-12). 
"Anti-Christ"  in  the  New  Testament  does  not  mean 
an  opponent  of  the  Messiah  necessarily,  but  simply  a 
pseudo-Messiah  who  may  appear,  having  never  heard 
himself  possibly  of  the  real  Messiah,  Jesus.  The  prep- 
osition means  in  this  instance  "instead  of"  rather  than 
"against."  This  passage,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  contains 
the  heart  of  the  message  of  this  letter,  which  inevitably 
must  stamp  it  pseudo-Pauline.  Briefly,  a  preliminary- 
program  must  be  gone  through  with  before  the  "end 
of  the  world"  when  Jesus  shall  come  again.  There 
will  first  be  an  apostasy,  or  falling  away  from  the 
Christian  faith,  followed  immediately  by  the  appear- 
ance of  a  pseudo-Messiah,  or  "man  of  sin."  There  will 
be  a  removal  of  the  restraining  hand  that  holds  back 
the  man  of  sin.  He  will  work  great  signs  and  won- 
ders. When  finally  he  sets  himself  up  in  the  temple 
above  God,  then  comes  the  Parousia  ("second  com- 
ing") of  Jesus  Christ  (Mark  13:24-30).  I  Thessa- 
lonians teaches  that  the  Parousia  will  be  sudden  (4:  16; 
5:2,  3);  n  Thessalonians  teaches  an  extended  prelim- 
inary program  which  will  reveal  in  advance  when  the 
Parousia  is  to  be. 

The  reader  may  well  imagine  that  a  mass  of  specu- 
lative commentary  exists  as  to  the  identity  of  the  man 
of  sin.  Certainly  such  a  conception  was  very  vivid 
and  intelligible  to  the  Christian  mind  of  the  time  of 
Paul  and  immediately  after.    The  term  anti-christ  oc- 


I40  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

curs  twice  in  I  John  and  once  in  H  John.  Pseudo- 
Messiahs  are  mentioned  in  the  Book  of  Acts  (Acts  5 : 
34-39).  Revelation  refers  to  anti-christs.  About  ten 
years  after  the  death  of  Jesus,  the  Emperor  Caligula 
(which  means  "Little  Boot"),  wanted  to  set  up  his 
statue  in  the  Temple  at  Jerusalem  to  be  worshipped 
as  a  god.  In  a  frenzy  the  Jews  repeatedly  sent  dele- 
gations to  Rome  in  vain  to  forestall  such  hideous 
blasphemy.  Fortunately,  the  vessel  conveying  the 
image  was  sunk  en  route  to  the  coast  of  Palestine, 
which  unavoidably  delayed  the  establishment  of  the 
cult  of  emperor-worship  in  the  Jewish  capital.  Anti- 
ochus  Epiphanes,  of  Syria,  about  168  B.  C,  captured 
Jerusalem  and  erected  an  altar  to  Jupiter  in  the  Tem- 
ple on  which  he  sacrificed  swine,  the  abomination  of 
the  Jews,  and  vilely  profaned  the  sacred  edifice  in  a 
manner  thus  which  they  could  never  forget  or  forgive. 
Nero,  who  slaughtered  Christians  wholesale,  may  have 
been  the  man  of  sin  here.  After  the  death  of  Nero, 
the  horrible  ogre  of  the  early  church,  the  rumor 
gained  great  headway  that  he  was  only  in  conceal- 
ment, and  would  one  day  return  unexpectedly  to  con- 
tinue his  unspeakably  inhuman  and  terrible  persecu- 
tions. This  legend  gained  him  the  name  of  "Nero 
Redivivus" — Nero  revived,  or  come  back  to  life.  This 
is  mentioned  disguisedly  in  Revelation  13  and  17.  In 
fact  the  curious  parallel  between  II  Thess.  2  and  Rev- 
elation 13  has  been  noted  frequently  by  Bible  stu- 
dents. The  reference  to  the  "image  of  the  beast"  (Rev. 
13:  15)  and  the  fate  of  his  worshippers  (Rev.  19:20) 
must  have  been  extremely  vivid  to  the  early  Chris- 
tians.    In  modern  times  a  practical  man  might,  under 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  141 

the  same  circumstances,  regard  it  as  purely  a  form, 
make  mental  reservations,  and  thus  not  necessarily 
predicate  divinity  with  the  emperor  or  his  image.  But 
the  naive,  primitive  Christians,  in  a  manner  which  we 
cannot  fully  appreciate  today,  refused  to  compromise 
between  the  form  and  the  substance.  Armenia  re- 
fused to  do  it  in  the  terrible  days  of  Mohammedan 
oppression  of  just  a  few  years  ago.  The  Book  of 
Revelation  set  its  face  resolutely  against  external  com- 
promise, n  Thessalonians  does  the  same  by  infer- 
ence, but  not  directly. 

If  Paul  held  personally  this  conception  of  a  his- 
torical program  to  be  fulfilled  before  the  second  coming 
of  Jesus,  he  surely  must  have  held  it  as  a  fundamental 
doctrine.  But  in  none  of  the  rest  of  his  letters  is  it 
mentioned  at  all  in  connection  with  the  "end  of  the 
world,"  and  it  conflicts  sharply  with  I  Thessalonians 
on  this  subject.  It  adds  nothing  to  our  estimate  of 
Paul.  If  Paul  held  this  conception,  it  must  be  added 
to  our  estimate  of  him. 

(d)  Athens.— Resuming  Paul's  second  journey,  we 
have  found  him  staying  in  Athens  awaiting  word  from 
Timothy  as  to  how  the  church  at  Thessalonica  was 
faring.  Meantime,  worried  as  he  was,  he  was  not  idle. 
How  long  he  was  in  Athens  we  have  no  means  of 
knowing.  Browning's  poem  "Cleon"  attempts  to  give 
us  an  idea  of  the  manner  in  which  Athenians  regarded 
him.  The  Mars  Hill  sermon  of  Acts  17  is  regarded 
as  a  masterpiece  of  oratory,  although,  of  course,  it  can- 
not be  a  verbatim  stenographic  report  of  the  speech, 
nor  anything  more  than  a  fragment  of  a  public  ad- 
dress.    Paul  follows  the  latest  approved  methods  ad- 


142  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

vocated  in  public  speaking  of  "getting  in  the  experi- 
ence of  his  audience"  by  referring  to  ideas  and  objects 
with  which  they  are  already  familiar, — by  proceeding 
from  the  known  to  the  unknown.  This  is  partly  what 
he  meant  when  he  said,  'T  am  made  all  things  to  all 
men"  (I  Cor.  9:22).  To  the  barbarians  he  spoke  of 
their  stomachs  and  food  (Acts  14:  17);  to  the  Greeks 
he  spoke  of  athletics  (I  Cor.  9:  24-27,  etc.),  and  quoted 
their  own  poets  (Acts  17:  29;  I  Cor.  15:  33),  Cleanthes 
and  Menander.  Paul  at  Athens  made  what  he  after- 
wards himself  considered  a  serious  blunder,  and  which 
he  radically  corrected  at  Corinth  (I  Cor.  2:  1-5),  name- 
ly, preaching  "worldly  wisdom"  instead  of  the  ele- 
mentary facts  of  the  gospel.  In  this  manner  he  ac- 
counted for  his  failure  at  Athens,  a  city  to  which, 
as  far  as  is  known,  he  never  returned.  Nevertheless, 
Dionysius  and  Damaris  are  mentioned  as  Athenian 
converts  in  Acts  17:24. 

(e)  Corinth. — Paul  arrived  at  Corinth  ill  (I  Cor. 
2:3).  This  city  was  fifty  miles  from  Athens,  the  capi- 
tal of  Achaia,  and  noted  for  its  splendor,  luxury,  profli- 
gacy, and  vice.  Here  was  the  magnificent  Temple  of 
Apollo  with  its  fifteen  massive  columns,  each  twenty- 
three  feet  high  and  six  feet  in  diameter.  Here  was  a 
citadel  of  wickedness  indeed,  and  Paul  was  brought 
face  to  face  with  base  and  wholesale  corruption.  Re- 
membering his  Athenian  experiences,  facing  this  new 
tremendous  task,  we  cannot  wonder  at  his  "illness 
and  fear"  (I  Cor.  2:  1-4,  etc.).  But  Paul  immediately 
determined  and  held  steadfastly  to  his  resolution,  not 
to  follow  the  "worldly  wisdom"  he  had  tried  in  Athens, 
but  to  stick  to  fundamental,  elementary  preaching  (I 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  143 

Cor.  2:1-5  and  4'.  i5,  etc.).     At  Corinth  he  found  a 
congenial  Roman  couple  for  hosts  of  the  same  trade 
(Acts   18:2),  whose  names  are  mentioned  six  times 
in  the  New  Testament,  in  four  of  which  the  wife's 
name  stands  first:    Priscilla  and  Aquila,  tentmakers. 
Acts  nearly  always  confines  itself  to  Paul's  activities 
among  the  Jews  until  the  sharp  reaction  comes  (Acts 
18  •  6),  when  he  turns  from  them  to  the  Gentiles.    But 
I  Corinthians  addresses  the  church  as  Gentiles  only 
(I  Cor.  10:7,  14  and  12:1),  "carried  away  by  dumb 
idols,"  and  discusses  typical  heathen  shortcomings  of 
theirs  in  the  light  of  the  gospel  (I  Cor.  5  and  6).    In 
I  Cor.  8,  9,  and  10,  Paul  discusses  the  diet  problem  for 
them.    Apparently  the  lower  classes  of  Corinth  were 
chiefly  converted  by  Paul  (I  Cor.  1:26-28  and  7:21), 
and  the  world  of  fashion,  wealth  and  intellect  was 
sparingly  represented,  although  Gains   (I  Cor.  1:14; 
Romans  16:23),  and  Erastus,  treasurer  of  the  city  of 
Corinth  (Romans  16:23)  belonged  to  the  latter  class. 
Stephanas  was  Paul's  first  convert  in  Achaia  (I  Cor. 
1:16  and    16:15).     Other   Corinthian   converts   were 
Fortunatus    and   Achaicus    (I    Cor.    16:17);    Crispus 
(Acts  18 :  8 ;  I  Cor.  1:14);  and  Sosthenes  (Acts  18 :  17 ; 
I  Cor.  1:1).    Why  Sosthenes  was  beaten  and  by  whom 
(Acts   18:17)  is  unknown,  unless  because  he  was  a 
poor  prosecutor.     Acts  is  vague  here  again,   as  fre- 
quently.    Paul  remained  in  Corinth  a  year  and  a  half 
(Acts  18:  II),  arriving  probably  in  the  fall  of  52  A.  D., 
and  leaving  in  the  spring  of  54.    Every  two  years  there 
was  held  near  Corinth  the  Isthmian  Games,  a  bien- 
nial athletic  festival.     It  is  known  to  have  occurred  in 
53  A.  D.  while  Paul  was  at  Corinth.    Whether  he  at- 


144  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

tended  or  not  is,  of  course,  doubtful,  but  certainly  I 
Corinthians  is  full  of  figures  of  speech  based  upon 
athletics,  notably  the  passage  9 :  23-27.  Paul's  policy 
at  Corinth  was  elementary,  but  was  well  justified  by 
the  subsequent  course  of  events.  How  the  gospel  mes- 
sage spread  throughout  Achaia  is  indicated  by  H  Cor. 
I :  I  and  11 :  10. 

Although  I  Corinthians  was  written  from  Ephesus 
during  the  Third  Missionary  Journey  some  time  later, 
in  order  that  we  profit  the  most  from  New  Testament 
study,  we  shall  now  read  I  and  H  Corinthians,  to  get 
a  complete  picture  of  a  typical  Pauline  church  and  its 
problems,  which  may  serve  as  a  basis  for  our  pictures 
of  all  the  other  churches. 

The  First  Letter  to  the  Corinthians :    (Corinthians  B) 

Corinth,  a  center  of  profligacy  and  corruption  in  the 
ancient  world,  had  a  church  established  there  with 
much  difficulty  by  Paul.  Apparently  one  of  the  dis- 
ciples of  John  the  Baptist,  named  ApoUos,  had  sowed 
the  seed  of  Christianity  in  Corinth  some  time  before 
(Acts  18:27;  I  Cor.  3:6).  In  characterizing  Apollos 
the  Greek  uses  the  word  "boiling"  rather  than  *'fer- 
vent"  (Acts  18:  25)  in  describing  his  eloquence.  Many 
naturally  preferred  the  elaborate,  oratorical  Apollos 
to  the  plain-spoken  Paul,  since  oratory  was  something 
of  an  art  among  the  ancient  Greeks  (I  Cor.  13:  i). 

I  Corinthians  i :  10  indicates  from  that  point  on  that 
the  church  at  Corinth  had  split  up  into  bickering  fac- 
tions. There  was  a  "Paul  party"  and  an  "Apollos 
party"  and  a  "Cephas  party."    As  these  cliques  in  the 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  145 

church  were  hard  to  eradicate,  I  Cor.  16:  12  indicatei 
that  Apollos  had  been  sufficiently  diplomatic  to  resign 
his  work  at  Corinth  and  to  return  home  to  Ephesus. 
There  appears  to  have  been  a  certain  hostility  to  Paul 
himself  (I  Cor.  4:18-21),  which  he  feels  obliged  to 
overcome.  Paul  appeals  to  common  sense  in  the  solu- 
tion of  the  difficulty  (I  Cor.  i :  12,  13). 

Moreover,  there  were  certain  sad  blemishes  among 
the  Corinthian  Christians  which  seem  to  have  been 
common  everyday  occurrences  (Chapters  5  and  6,  esp. 
note  6:  II  and  6:  19)-    These  people,  but  recently  res- 
cued from  heathenism  (10:7,  14;  12:2)-  had  not  yet 
learned  one  of  the  great  fundamentals  of  life,  health, 
strength,  and  character,— respect  for  the  human  body. 
In    I    Corinthians   6:6-8,    Paul    reproves    them    for 
dra-ging  their  domestic  and  civil  difficulties  before 
pagan  magistrates  in  the  Corinthian  courts  of  justice, 
and   thus   discrediting   and   disgracing   the    Christian 
movement  in  the  eyes  of  unbelievers. 

In -fact,  I  Corinthians  deals  with  a  multwde  of  con- 
crete matters  that  throw  a  flood  of  light  on  the  Graeco- 
Roman  world  of  that  day,  and  that  constitute  a  sort 
of  interesting  "source-book"  of  materials  for  the  his- 
torian of  ancient  times.     In  I  Cor.  i:ii  and  16:17. 
Paul  gives  the  source  of  his  information  regardmg 
affairs  at  Corinth,  namely,  Chloe's  family.    I  Cor.  16 :  8 
and  10  indicate  that  Paul  wrote  from  Ephesus ;  and  I 
Cor.  7 : 1  says  that  this  epistle  is  in  reply  to  one  writ- 
ten to  him  containing  inquiries  on  various  matters, 
some  of  which  were  not  covered  by  the  doctrine  of 
Jesus  (I  Cor.  7:  12,  25).    Apparently  Paul  has  written 
a  letter  prior  to  this  one  to  Corinth  (I  Cor.  5:9,  n), 


146  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

which  is  now  lost,  or  exists  only  in  fragment.  There 
are  some  verses  in  I  Corinthians  which  defy  explana- 
tion (7:36-38;  11:  10;  15:29)  and  possibly  never  will 
be  adequately  interpreted  to  satisfy  all  schools  of  Bib- 
lical interpretation.  I  Corinthians  13  is  a  justly  cele- 
brated parenthesis  in  the  letter  which  sums  up  to  our 
mind  the  whole  message  of  Christianity.  I  Corinthians 
15  is  a  reply  to  the  question  as  to  the  fate  of  the  dead 
who  have  not  lived  to  see  the  Second  Coming  of  Jesus, 
now  imminently  expected  by  Paul  and  the  Corinthian 
church.  I  Cor.  16:  13  contains  a  final  injunction  to 
reckless  Greeks. 

The  whole  letter  may  be  neatly  outlined  as  follows : 

Outline  of  I  Corinthians  for  Reading  Guide: 

Chapters  1-4:   The  "party  spirit." 

Chapters  5-6:  Necessity  of  respect  for  the  human  body. 
Chapters  7-15:    A  series  of  answers   to  specific  in- 
quiries from  Corinth: 

(a)  Ch.  7:  The  question  of  marriage  or  celibacy 
in  the  Christian  life.  Paul  himself,  doubtless 
unmarried,  does  not  view  marriage  from  a 
sympathetic  standpoint,  partly  because  he  be- 
lieves the  Second  Coming  of  Jesus  and  the 
"end  of  the  world"  to  be  imminent,  which  fact 
would  seem  to  make  marriage  superfluous. 

(b)  Ch.  8,  9,  10:  The  question  of  eating  meat  sac- 
rificed to  idols.  Paul  concludes  that  "an  idol 
is  nothing,"  and  that  therefore  it  cannot  af- 
fect the  food  offered  to  it  as  such;  but,  fur- 
ther, that  if  some  person  of  less  understand- 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  147 

ing  could  not  accede  to  this  broad  view  in 
the  act  of  becoming  a  Christian,  Paul  advises 
complete  abstinence  to  win  him  over, 
(c)  Ch.  II,  12,  13,  14:  Problems  of  the  church- 
service  : 
(i)  11:1-16 — The  behavior  of  women  in 
church.  (A  puzzling  and  unsympathetic  at- 
titude to  modern  readers). 

(2)  II :  17-34 — the  administration  of  the  com- 
munion service. 

(3)  12,  13,  14 — The  exercise  of  spiritual  gifts, 
some  of  which  are  now  obsolete  practices. 
For  instance,  the  "gift  of  tongues"  was  a 
sort  of  mystic  babbling,  which  Paul  warns 
against  in  excess  as  a  waste  of  time  in 
church  (14:  27,  28). 

(4)  15 — The  resurrection  of  the  dead  who 
have  not  lived  to  see  the  Second  Coming, 
now  so  imminently  expected  by  the  Corin- 
thians and  Paul  himself.  This  is  the  first 
extended  discussion  of  the  resurrection  to 
be  written  in  a  New  Testament  document. 

Chapter  16:    Final  injunctions  and  greetings. 

The  Mystery  of  Second  Corinthians:    (Corinthians 
A,  C,  and  D) 

Reading  thoughtfully  the  letter  commonly  called 
Paul's  Second  Letter  to  the  Corinthians  leaves  one 
with  a  curious  impression  regarding  its  unity.  Is  it  all 
one  letter  or  a  medley  of  fragments?  Having  read  I 
Corinthians  carefully,  which  is  undoubtedly  a  unity, 


148  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

n  Corinthians  impresses  one  as  a  patchwork  or  "crazy 
quilt"  of  vaguely  related  facts,  threats,  and  exhorta- 
tions. 

Approaching  this  letter  for  analysis,  it  is  evident 
that  Paul  had  been  to  Corinth  a  second  time  since  the 
Second  Journey  visit  of  52-54  A.  D.,  before  writing 
this  epistle  (H  Cor.  13:  i,  2),  and  the  visit  had  not 
been  a  happy  one  (2:1-4).  Paul  had  been  insulted 
and  slandered  (chapters  2,  7,  and  10).  H  Corinthians 
2 : 4  refers  to  a  famous  "Sorrowful  Letter"  which  he 
had  written  to  his  recalcitrant  church,  and  which  some 
scholars  now  consider  to  be  "lost."  See  2 : 9  and  7 : 
8-12  for  further  evidences  of  this  letter  and  its  general 
effectiveness  in  disciplining  the  church.  These  schol- 
ars advance  the  theory  that  the  Corinthians  in  anger 
or  shame  destroyed  this  letter. 

Paul  had  sent  Titus,  however,  to  Corinth  with  a 
"Reconciliation  Letter,"  and  H  Cor.  2:12,  13  and 
7:  6,  13,  14  show  that  he  awaited  Titus'  word  as  to  how 
the  church  at  Corinth  was  faring;  how  Titus  brought 
back  a  good  report  (2:  14),  and  how  Paul  is  not  sorry 
that  he  wrote  the  letter  (2:  i,  4).  This  section  of  the 
story  seems  to  conclude  abruptly  at  H  Cor.  9:  15. 

In  1870,  a  German  scholar,  Hausrath,  advanced  the 
theory  that  H  Corinthians  10-13  inclusive,  may  con- 
stitute the  "Sorrowful  Letter,"  or  a  fragment  of  it, 
because  the  tone  is  bitter  and  the  words  are  stinging 
and  ironical,  as  an  impartial  reading  will  show.  This 
theory  is  now  universally  held  among  New  Testament 
scholars. 

Meanwhile,  as  Paul  awaited  Titus,  he  (Paul)  was 
driven  from  Ephesus  (H  Cor.  2:  12;  Acts  20:  ij. 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  149 

These  somewhat  fortuitous  facts  gleaned  from  this 
letter  lead  one  to  believe  that  H  Corinthians  is  not 
therefore,  a  single  unified  letter,  but  a  patchwork  of 
three  fragments  of  letters  as  follows: 

1.  A  Letter  from  Paul  to  Corinth:    (H  Cor.  6:  14- 

7-  l) 

2.  The  "Sorrowful  Letter":    (H  Cor.  10-13). 

3     The  "Reconciliation  Letter":    (H  Cor.  1-9). 

It  will  repay  the  New  Testament  student  to  read 
(I)  above,  and  then  re-read  I  Corinthians  7:  12-16,  to 
see  how  Paul  revised  his  former  judgment  with  regard 
to  marriage  between  Christians  and  pagans.  But  we 
must  fit  I  Corinthians  into  Paul's  relationship  to  the 
Corinthian  church  here  somewhere  along  the  line  m 
order  to  have  a  completely  unified  impression  of  this 
relationship.  The  following  diagram  will  be,  we  be- 
lieve, illuminating  in  the  interpretation  of  the  four 
letters  to  the  Corinthians : 

Paul's  Relationship  to  the  Corinthian  Church: 

1.  A  Missionary  Visit  from   Paul  on  the   Second 

Journey :   52-54  A.  D. 

2.  A  Letter  from  Paul:    (H  Cor.  6:14-7:1.  called 

Cor.  A). 
3     A  Letter  from  Corinth  to  Paul:    (I  Cor.  7:1). 

4.  Paul's  Reply :    (I  Corinthians,  called  Corinthians 

B). 

5.  Paul's   Sorrowful   Visit:     (H    Cor.    13:1,   2;   2: 

1-14)- 

6.  The  "Sorrowful  Letter":    (H  Cor.  10-13,  called 

Cor.  C). 


150  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

7.  The  "Reconciliation  Letter":    (H  Cor.  1-9,  called 

Cor.  D). 

8.  Paul's  Third  Visit  to  Corinth,  where  he  spent 

the  winter  (Acts  20:  1-3),  and  wrote  the  Letter 
to  the  Romans. 

8.  The  Third  Missionary  Journey. — Resuming 
Paul's  career  near  the  end  of  the  Second  Journey,  we 
find  that  Corinth  marks  the  concluding  city  of  the 
latter.  He  starts  back  to  Antioch  and  Jerusalem  ac- 
companied by  Priscilla  and  Aquila  (Acts  18:18,  19), 
who  leave  him  at  Ephesus.  This  ends  the  Second 
Journey,  which  has  hastily  covered  Asia,  and  has, 
with  as  much  thoroughness  as  was  possible  under  the 
circumstances,  evangelized  Achaia  and  Macedonia. 
The  Third  Journey  is  told  from  Acts  18:  23  to  21 :  16, 
and  deals  principally  with  Paul's  three-year  mission 
at  Ephesus  (Acts  20:31),  where  for  the  first  time 
Christianity  came  into  its  first  great  historic  conflict 
with  money  interests  through  the  medium  of  the  gor- 
geous Temple  of  Diana  at  Ephesus,  one  of  the  Seven 
Wonders  of  the  World,  the  repository  of  many  great 
works  of  sculpture,  painting,  and  jewelry,  the  perfec- 
tion of  Ionic  architecture,  the  center  of  decadent 
heathen  worship,  and  the  object  of  pilgrimage  by  hun- 
dreds of  thousands  of  pilgrims  annually.  The  greatest 
attestation  to  the  success  of  a  man  is  the  admission  of 
his  enemies  that  he  is  successful ;  and  this  Paul  volun- 
tarily received  from  the  silversmith  Demetrius  (Acts 
19:26).  At  this  time  also  it  is  interesting  to  note 
how  the  spotlight  of  the  Book  of  Acts  turns  for  a  brief 
time  upon  the  personality  and  labors  of  Apollos,  a  dis- 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  151 

ciple  of  John  the  Baptist,  whom  we  have  noticed  be- 
fore. Apollos  was  probably  a  primitive  Christian  who 
for  some  reason  seems  early  to  have  left  Palestine, 
and  needed  to  be  "brought  up  to  date"  on  the  doctrines 
of  the  Resurrection,  the  baptism  of  the  Holy  Spirit, 
and  the  mission  of  the  Heavenly  Christ  as  Paul  con- 
ceived them.  Priscilla  and  Aquila  assisted  in  the  proc- 
ess, and  the  final  result  was  the  turning  of  Apollos 
into  a  Christian  of  the  approved  Pauline  pattern.  From 
Ephesus  during  these  three  years  Paul  wrote  some 
of  his  greatest  letters.  I  Corinthians  was  written  from 
Ephesus,  and  that  the  apostle  lived  in  troublous  times 
is  evident  not  only  from  Acts,  but  from  I  Cor.  15:  32, 
and  numerous  other  sidelights  in  the  Corinthian  liter- 
ature. Not  only  did  Paul  have  a  tremendous  personal 
struggle  at  Ephesus,  but  here  he  wrote  letters  to  the 
churches  that  were  being  undermined  by  Judaizers, 
whom  we  have  noticed  before  in  connection  with  the 
Council  at  Jerusalem.  Of  these  anti-legalistic,  or  anti- 
Judaic,  letters,  Galatians  is  the  most  powerful,  and 
must  have  been  written  from  Ephesus. 

The  Letter  to  the  Galatians 

We  have  seen  that  Paul  spent  three  years  in  Ephesus 
during  the  Third  Missionary  Journey,  and  that  they 
were  troublous  times.  I  Corinthians  was  written  from 
Ephesus,  and  indicates,  as  well  as  does  H  Corinthians, 
that  he  had  been  involved  in  a  great  personal  struggle 
(I  Cor.  15:32).  The  stay  in  Ephesus  is  notable  not 
only  for  Paul's  strenuous  missionary  endeavor,  but  for 
the  letters  written  from  there,  not  mentioned  in  Acts, 


152  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

to  churches  which  were  being  undermined  by  Judaiz- 
ers,  especially  Corinth  and  Galatia.  Of  these  the  latter 
is  most  typical. 

Galatians  was  written  not  to  a  congregation  in  a 
particular  church,  but  to  the  several  churches  of  the 
Galatian  province.  Bible  scholars  are  divided  over  the 
identity  of  the  name  "Galatia."  There  is  the  North 
Galatian  Theory  and  the  South  Galatian  Theory.  The 
former  refers  to  the  kingdom  of  Galatia  proper,  to  the 
north  part  of  the  peninsula  of  Asia  Minor.  North 
Galatia  was  inhabited  by  Gauls  (Galatia  is  a  variation 
of  "Gallia"),  of  the  Julius  Caesar  type.  By  South 
Galatia  is  meant  the  country  of  Lystra,  Derbe,  Icon- 
ium,  Antioch  in  Pisidia,  etc.,  of  the  First  Journe}'  In 
North  Galatia  were  Ancyra  (modern  Angora),  Pessi- 
nus,  Tavium,  etc.  It  is  noteworthy  that  the  author 
of  Acts  never  mentions  Galatia  as  such  in  describing 
the  First  Journey :  he  mentions  Pisidia  and  Lycaonia 
(Acts  13-14).  Therefore,  the  South  Galatian  Theory 
is  held  by  scholars  mainly  of  the  traditional,  conser- 
vative type,  because  of  its  sentimental  contact  with 
the  Book  of  Acts.  Most  liberal  progressive  scholars 
maintain  the  North  Galatian  Theory. 

Acts  16:6  mentions  a  hasty  trip  on  the  Second 
Journey  through  Galatia,  where  Paul  was  overtaken 
by  illness  (Gal.  4:13).  The  language  of  Gal.  4:13 
indicates  an  accidental  delay  rather  than  a  deliberate 
intention  to  evangelize  Galatia,  and  the  seeds  of  the 
gospel  were  sown  during  this  illness.  It  is  hardly 
credible  that  Paul  would  say,  "Oh,  you  stupid  Gala- 
tians" (Gal.  3:  i)  to  the  Christians  of  Lystra,  Iconium, 
Derbe,  and  Antioch  in  Pisidia.    Zahn  thinks  Galatians 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  153 

was  written  from  Corinth,  and  that  it  is  the  earliest 
letter  of  Paul's,  but  we  have  already  seen  that  the 
weight  of  evidence  for  priority  favors  I  Thessalonians. 
The  Letter  to  the  Galatians  is  marked  by  an  ab- 
sence of  cordial  specific  greetings  common  to  the  other 
letters  of  Paul.  It  is  addressed  simply  to  "the  churches 
of  Galatia"  (Gal.  1:2).  It  is  in  diametrical  contrast 
to  the  Letter  to  the  Philippians  in  every  respect.  In 
the  sixth  verse  of  the  first  chapter,  Paul,  after  a  some- 
what formal  salutation,  plunges  immediately  into  the 
problem  to  be  dealt  with.  The  English  translation, 
"I  marvel,"  would  have  been  better  translated,  'T  am 
thunderstruck"  or  "dumbfounded,"  for  that  is  Paul's 
precise  meaning.  Surprise,  astonishment,  amazement 
is  the  tone  of  the  introduction.  Paul  is  amazed  that 
the  Galatian  Christians  are  so  soon  proving  disloyal 
after  his  preaching  of  the  gospel  there.  The  trouble  is 
the  same  old  problem  presented  at  Antioch  which 
caused  the  Council  at  Jerusalem  to  convene,  and  that 
created  the  unpleasant  scene  between  Peter  and  Paul. 
The  old  reactionary  gang  has  gotten  busy  again,  raking 
over  the  dead  embers  of  Paul's  past  life,  ventilating 
his  early  record  against  the  church,  and  whispering 
that  the  liberal  Christianity  of  Paul  is  not  the  simon- 
pure  brand,  because  Paul  has  repudiated  the  cere- 
monies of  Judaism  which  Jesus  himself  had  upheld 
by  personal  example,  e.  g. — circumcision.  Paul,  said 
they,  had  never  come  under  the  direct  personal  author- 
ity of  Jesus  like  the  Twelve ;  he  was  a  "second-hand" 
apostle ;  once  he  was  a  persecutor,  but  now  he  had 
changed ;  he  had  a  two-faced  gospel,  preaching  cir- 
cumcision to  the  Jews  and  uncircumcision  to  the  Gen- 


154  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

tiles;  he  was  adopting  "the  easier  way,"  which  was 
wholly  defective;  he  had  "wound  them  around  his 
little  finger."  On  the  other  hand,  said  they,  Jesus 
himself  was  a  Jew,  circumcised,  ever  subject  to  the 
Law;  the  Messianic  hope  was  purely  a  Jewish  hope; 
and  the  Twelve  Apostles,  originally  called  of  Jesus, 
were  the  original  authorities  for  the  gospel,  and  they 
were  conformists  to  the  Law,  while  Paul  was  a  non- 
conformist. The  result  was  that  Paul's  stock  began 
to  decline.  "Do,"  said  they,  "as  did  Jesus  and  the 
Twelve,  and  become  the  children  of  Abraham."  To 
this  last  argument  Paul  replies  in  Galatians  3  and  4 
at  considerable  length,  and  with  considerable  skill 
in  debate  which  had  been  developed  in  him  by  his 
Rabbinical  training  at  the  feet  of  Gamaliel.  But  the 
effect  in  its  entirety  of  the  Judaizers'  arguments  in 
Paul's  Gentile  churches,  and  particularly  those  of  Gal- 
atia,  was  distressing  to  him  in  the  extreme,  for  he 
saw  his  religion  threatened  with  repudiation,  and  his 
churches  being  thrown  into  confusion  and  doubt.  The 
Letter  to  the  Galatians  is  a  formal  Declaration  of  In- 
dependence of  Christianity  from  conformity  to  Jewish 
legalism  and  ceremonialism.  It  decided  forever  the 
now  dead  and  obsolete  issue  of  whether  a  Gentile 
Christian  must  become  a  member  of  the  Jewish  church 
before  becoming  a  Christian,  and  it  decided  it  in  the 
negative.  Paul's  view  has  since  become  the  world 
view.  In  this  respect,  the  Letter  is  one  of  the  world's 
greatest  and  most  influential  documents,  ranking  along 
with  Magna  Charta,  the  Bill  of  Rights,  the  American 
Declaration  of  Independence,  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States,  and  Luther's  ninety-nine  theses. 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  155 
An  Outline  of  Galatians 

For  purposes  of  reading  and  analysis,  the  Letter  to 
the  Galatians  may  be  somewhat  accurately  and  conve- 
niently outlined  as  follows: 

Sec.  I— (Chapters  i  and  2).  Paul  vindicates  his  apos- 
tolic authority;  he  reviews  his  past  career  to 
prove  that  he  is  not  a  counterfeit,  "second- 
hand" apostle. 
Sec.  H— (Chapters  3:1  to  5:12):  The  real  relation 
of  the  Christian  to  the  Law  (i.e.,  conforming 
to  Jewish  ceremonies)  is  discussed  at  some 
length  and  with  masterly  logic  and  skill. 
Sec.  HL— (Chapters  5:  13  to  6):  Paul  appeals  from 
the  ceremonial  bondage  of  the  old  Jewish  law 
to  a  new  principle  of  freedom  in  Christ,  and 
demonstrates  its  application. 

Discussion  of  Section  I 

The  negatives  of  Galatians  i  and  2  are  very  strong 
and  are  frequent  in  occurrence,  which  indicates  the 
substance  of  his  opponents'  accusations.  "You  have 
heard,  and  apparently  very  recently,"  says  Paul,  in 
effect,  "that  I  have  a  man-made,  second-hand  gospel 
(Gal.  1 :  7-12).  This  I  deny ;  for  it  came  to  me  through 
the  revelation  of  Jesus  Christ  himself  on  that  memor- 
able journey  of  mine  to  Damascus.  Moreover,  after 
that  incident  I  retired  from  Damascus  to  Arabia  with- 
out ever  having  met  any  of  the  Apostles  (Gal.  i :  16, 
17).  Of  course,  they  have  told  you  again  of  my  career 
as  a  persecutor  (Gal.  i :  13,  14).    But  after  my  return 


156  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

from  Arabia,  I  never  met  Peter  until  three  years  had 
passed,  and  then  I  spent  only  a  fortnight  with  him 
(Gal.  I :  i8).  James  was  the  only  other  Apostle  whom 
I  met  (i :  19).  I  went  later  to  Syria  and  Cilicia  with- 
out ever  having  become  acquainted  personally  with 
the  Judean  churches ;  and  as  for  the  persecutions, — 
they  by  contrast  only  added  to  my  prestige  (Gal.  i :  21- 
24).  Before  God,  I  am  telling  nothing  but  the  truth 
(Gal.  1 :  20)."  Paul  then  plunges  directly  into  the  prob- 
lem (2:  1-3),  recounting  the  history  of  how  this  prob- 
lem had  been  thrashed  out  in  the  Council  at  Jerusa- 
lem (Acts  15-Gal.  2),  for  which  see  Section  6  of  this 
text,  preceding.  Paul  made  a  test-case  of  Titus,  who 
was  a  Greek,  carried  the  matter  to  the  supreme  court, 
into  the  very  citadel  of  the  enemy,  a  compromise  agree- 
ment was  reached  and  concurred  in,  and  they  shook 
hands  upon  it  (Gal.  2 :  9).  Paul's  view  was  the  liberal, 
progressive  view ;  Jesus  was  the  fulfilment  of  the  Law  ; 
and  so  the  former  declares  decisively :  "IF  SALVA- 
TION COME  BY  THE  LAW,  THEN  CHRIST 
DIED  FOR  NOUGHT"  (Gal.  2:21).  The  Old  Dis- 
pensation had  lost  its  effectiveness  and  had  passed 
away ;  the  New  had  come  to  stay. 

Discussion  of  Section  II 

"Oh,  stupid  (or  senseless)  Galatians"  is  more 
nearly  a  literal  rendering  of  Gal.  3:1.  Paul  here  an- 
swers the  arguments  of  the  Judaizers  with  regard  to 
"becoming  children  of  Abraham"  before  becoming 
Christians.  He  quotes  the  celebrated  verse  of  Gene- 
sis 15:6:   "Abraham  had  faith  in  God,  and  of  this  his 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  157 

righteousness  consisted"  (Gal.  3:6)  to  prove  that  by 
the  spirit  of  faith,  and  not  by  physical  ceremonies,  a 
man's  salvation  and  righteousness  comes,  turning  his 
opponents'  own  ammunition  back  against  them.  The 
Old  Testament  had  preached  the  gospel  thus :  "Cursed 
be  he  that  confirmeth  not  all  the  words  of  this  law 
to  do  them"  (Deuteronomy  2'j\26).  But  since  it  is 
not  possible  to  keep  the  whole  Law,  therefore  any 
infringement  thereof  brings  the  law-breaker  under  the 
curse.  Occasionally  Paul  drops  his  fluent,  formal  Rab- 
binical style,  and  speaks  "man  to  man,"  as  in  Gal.  3 : 
15,  but  mainly  he  develops  his  thesis  by  the  former 
method.  The  Law  came  430  years  after  Abraham 
(3:  17):  how  could  it  displace  or  supersede  the  origi- 
nal covenant  with  Abraham  that  "the  righteous  man 
shall  live  by  faith"  (Habakkuk  2:4).  The  Law  was 
a  sort  of  secondary  arrangement  to  keep  us  within 
bounds,  the  tutor,  the  "pedagogue"  (and  Paul  here 
means  literally  a  guider  of  footsteps,  the  conveyer  who 
saw  that  the  child  did  not  play  truant,  and  not  the 
schoolmaster,  until  the  coming  of  Christ  (Gal.  3:25); 
but  when  the  latter  event  occurred,  the  function  of  the 
guardian  ceased.  According  to  Paul,  baptism  is  put- 
ting on  the  garment  of  Christ,  so  that  we  actually  live 
within  him ;  and  when  we  have  done  that  we  are  actu- 
ally the  legitimate  heirs  of  Abraham  (Jal.  3:27-29). 
Paul  speaks  of  "bondage  to  the  ruc'iments  of  the 
world,"  which  is  a  stinging  reference  to  superstitious 
awe  for  ceremonialism  and  external  rites,  whether  of 
heathen  cults  or  of  the  Jewish  Law  itself!  "You 
observe  days,  and  months,  and  .'imes,  and  years," — 
externalities   in   religion!     (Gal   4:10).     The   slave- 


158  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

woman,  Hagar,  typifies  Jerusalem  in  bondage  (to  the 
Law),  the  Law  of  Sinai, — the  mother  of  slaves;  the 
free  woman  is  Jerusalem  above,  our  mother,  the  mother 
of  the  free!  (Gal.  4:22-31).  Paul  wonders  who  has 
upset  the  Galatians!  (Gal.  5:7-10). 

Discussion  of  Section  III 

Paul  concludes  his  argument  proper  by  urging  that 
if  slavery  is  the  state  so  greatly  desired  by  the  Gala- 
tions,  let  them  be  slaves  to  love.  If  one  has  the  Chris- 
tian virtues,  no  law  is  needed  to  govern  such  a  per- 
son (Gal.  5:23).  To  be  sure  missteps  are  made  even 
by  Christians,  but  it  is  easy  for  them  to  set  themselves 
again  aright  (6:  i).  Paul  gives  a  very  positive  dem- 
onstration of  conditions  arising  from  servile  bondage 
to  a  code  of  laws  (5:  17-23),  and  of  the  emancipation 
from  the  same  to  be  obtained  in  freedom  in  Christ 
(5:22-24).  Galatians  5:  12  is  a  fiery  "parting  shot"  at 
his  opponents.  Gal.  6:  17  may  possibly  refer,  it  is 
thought  by  some  Bible  students,  to  be  the  marks  re- 
ferred to  also  in  I  Corinthians  15 :  32,  if  both  are  to  be 
interpreted  literally. 

Conclusion 

The  fact  tuat  the  Letter  to  the  Galatians  has  sur- 
vived down  to  the  present  day  shows  that  it  must 
have  been  well  received,  and  that  it  probably  had  the 
desired  effect.  The  Galatians  at  all  events  did  not 
tear  it  up  in  anger  or  shame  and  "throw  it  in  the  waste- 
basket." 

g.    Paul    Driven  l-om   Ephesus. — Not   only   is   the 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  159 

Letter  to  the  Galatians  probably  written  from  Ephe- 
sus,  but  Paul  also  was  having  trouble  with  the  church 
at  Corinth.  As  we  have  seen,  he  had  sent  Titus  to 
Corinth  with  a  "Reconciliation  Letter";  but  while 
awaiting  the  return  of  Titus,  he  (Paul)  was  driven 
from  Ephesus  (H  Cor.  2:  12;  Acts  20:  i).  Paul  now 
winters  at  Corinth  (Acts  20:  1-6),  and  starts  back  east 
via  Macedonia  and  Philippi  to  avoid  a  plot  of  the  Jews 
to  assassinate  him.  At  Corinth  during  this  winter  he 
writes  the  Letter  to  the  Romans  of  his  imminent  jour- 
ney back  to  Jerusalem  (Romans  15:25,  26).  He  tells 
the  Roman  church,  which  he  has  never  seen,  that  he 
is  going  back  to  Jerusalem  with  an  offering  for  the 
poor  of  that  church  (Gal.  2:  10;  Romans  15:25,  26); 
and  that  he  is  very  eager  to  visit  Rome  (Romans  i :  8- 
15;  15:28-33).  If  he  escapes  detention  or  possible 
assassination  in  Jerusalem  (15  :  31 ),  he  is  going  to  make 
the  trip  to  Rome  and  Spain,  ever  following  his  prin- 
ciple of  building  on  virgin  territory  (15:  19,  20).  The 
Letter  to  the  Romans  may  be  briefly  outlined  as  fol- 
lows : 

Paul's  Letter  to  the  Romans 

Paul  in  Romans  is  writing  to  a  church  over  which 
he  has  no  authority,  and  therefore  he  feels  free  to  dis- 
cuss as  a  related  whole  the  principles  of  the  gospel. 
Chapters  i-ii  discuss  in  some  detail  theoretical  Chris- 
tian principles,  and  11-16  apply  these  principles  to  per- 
sonal conduct  and  the  business  of  living.  More  specifi- 
cally, chapters  1-8  compare  and  relate  Judaism  and 
Christianity.  Chapter  8  is  a  magnificent  climax,  and 
is  possibly  the  greatest  religious  and  doctrinal  master- 


i6o  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

piece  in  the  writing  of  the  whole  world.  Romans  9, 
ID,  and  II  deal  in  some  detail  with  the  Jewish  people 
and  their  religion,  and  are  critical  for  Paul,  for  he  has 
been  an  apostate  to  his  own  religion  and  to  his  own 
people.  The  splendid  figure  of  the  olive-tree  as  the 
symbol  of  the  Israelitish  religion  on  which  the  Gentiles 
are  "grafted"  (Rom.  11:16-36)  is  a  masterly  bit  of 
Rabbinical  logic  in  which  Paul  had  been  thoroughly 
trained  at  the  feet  of  Gamaliel  (Acts  22:  3). 

Paul's  Note  to  Ephesus:    (Romans  16) 

There  are  more  personal  greetings  in  Romans  16 
than  in  all  the  rest  of  Paul's  letters  put  together,  which 
has  excited  some  wonder  among  Biblical  scholars. 
He  greets  many  friends  already  known  to  him  in  Ephe- 
sus, Asia,  and  Macedonia,  who  are  intimate  and  dear. 
Romans  16  is  certainly  a  note  from  Corinth  to  Ephesus. 
Paul  seems  to  know  quite  well  their  personal  circum- 
stances. Jiilicher  says,  "Otherwise,  we  must  presup- 
pose a  general  migration  from  Ephesus  to  Rome." 
Such  a  conclusion  would  be,  of  course,  palpably  ab- 
surd. 

10.  The  Start  Back  to  Jerusalem. — Apparently  Gains 
was  Paul's  host  on  this  last  sojourn  in  Corinth  (Rom. 
16:23).  The  apostle  seems  at  this  time  to  have  been 
living  under  high  tension,  with  Jewish  plots  against 
him  on  every  hand  (Rom.  15:30-32).  When  at  the 
Council  of  Jerusalem  a  division  of  territory  was  made 
and  they  shook  hands  upon  it,  it  was  suggested  that 
Paul  remember  the  poor  of  the  Jerusalem  church 
(Gal.  2:10;  Rom.  15:25,  26;  Acts  20:22  and  24:17), 
a  vow  which  he  now  faithfully  sets  about  to  fulfil.    He 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  i6i 

departs  at  last  by  sea  from  Philippi,  and  sails  by  Ephe- 
sus,  where  he  tarries  long  enough  to  bid  the  elders 
of  that  church  a  final  farewell.  Acts  20 :  38  indicates 
that  they  never  saw  him  again.  Goodspeed  says  that 
Acts  is  the  rise  of  the  Greek  mission,  not  the  memoirs 
of  Paul,  and  hence  does  not  clumsily  include  an  ac- 
count of  Paul's  death;  but  it  betrays  a  knowledge  of 
his  death  in  chapters  20  and  21,  in  Paul's  farewell  ad- 
dresses and  in  the  anguished  attitude  of  his  friends. 
Why  does  the  author  exploit  this, — especially  the  fare- 
well address  to  the  Ephesian  elders  at  Miletus?  The 
readers  of  Acts  in  the  first  century  must  have  realized 
the  import  of  these  passages.  Paul  is  unmistakably 
dead  by  the  time  the  Book  of  Acts  is  written  in  com- 
pletion :  all  his  dire  prognostications  to  his  friends  are 
too  true,  else  these  addresses  are  grossly  improper  and 
must  "fall  flat"  on  the  readers  of  the  book.  This  is 
skilful  craftsmanship  in  writing,  and  gives  Acts  a 
touching  significance  that  a  clumsy  foot-note  or  con- 
clusion could  not  possibly  do.  Concerning  the  offer- 
ing for  the  poor  of  Jerusalem  the  Book  of  Acts  seems 
to  know  little  or  nothing  (Acts  24:  17).  Bacon  asks, 
"How  was  Paul's  collection  received?"  or  does  Chris- 
tian modesty  and  courtesy  simply  forbid  its  extended 
mention  ? 

II.  Paul's  Presence  in  Jerusalem  Causes  a  Riot  and 
His  Arrest.— (Acts  21 :  17  to  23 :  31).  In  late  May  or 
early  June  of  58  A.  D.  Paul  arrived  in  Jerusalem  with 
Luke,  Mnason  of  Cyprus,  who  was  the  proprietor  of 
certain  lodgings  in  Jerusalem,  Trophimus  the  Ephe- 
sian, and  certain  Christians  of  Caesarea  (Acts  21 :  15, 
16,  29),  to  attend  the  Feast  of  Pentecost.    Recognized 


i62  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

by  certain  Asiatic  Jews  with  whom  he  had  had  to  deal 
straightforwardly  in  the  past,   Paul  was   accused  of 
taking  a  Gentile  into  the  Jewish  precincts  of  the  tem- 
ple, and  of  subverting  the   Jewish  law  and   religion 
(21 :  28,  29).     A  wild  riot  ensued  in  which  Paul  es- 
caped  only   by   the   timely   intervention   of   Claudius 
Lysias,  captain  of  the  Roman  garrison  in  the  Tower 
of  Antonia,  and  a  band  of  soldiers.     Paul  made  his 
identity  known  in  Greek  to  the  captain,  and  was  given 
permission  to  speak  to  his  fellow-countrymen,  which 
he  did  in  Hebrew.     They  listened  until  he  spoke  of 
his  mission  to  the  Gentiles,  and  then  gave  vent  to  their 
fury  in  the  words  of  Acts  22 :  22.     Paul  invoked  his 
Roman  citizenship  and  was  protected  from  imminent 
mob  violence.    Next  morning  he  was  taken  before  the 
Sanhedrin  for  examination,  but  the  presence  of  the 
prisoner  caused  such  an  outburst  again  that  Lysias  was 
forced  to  hurry  him  away  (Acts  23  :  10).    Forty  Jewish 
fanatics  conspired  under  a  curse,  vowing  neither  to 
eat  nor  drink  in  the  meantime,  to  murder  Paul   (23 : 
12-14),  but  this  plot  was  frustrated  by  its  discovery 
on  the  part  of  Paul's  nephew  (23  :  16).    In  a  very  prac- 
tical way  Paul  informed  the  captain  (23  117),  who  pre- 
pared seventy  cavalrymen  and  two  hundred  light  in- 
fantrymen (23  :  23)  to  escort  Paul  to  safety  at  Caesarea, 
where  Felix,  a  successor  of  Pontius  Pilate,  retained 
the  customary  headquarters  of  the  Roman  government 
in  Palestine.     All  this  was  done  by  night,  and  Felix 
received  his  distinguished  prisoner  with  interest  and 
assurance. 

12.    Paul  a  Prisoner  at  Caesarea. — (Acts  24,  25,  26). 

(a)  The  Trial  Before  Felix. — Felix  conducted  the 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  163 

trial  described  in  Acts  24.  Note  Paul's  diplomatic  man- 
ner of  address  (24:10).  The  Jewish  accusers  failed 
to  convince  the  governor  that  Paul  had  done  anything 
for  which  they  might  receive  and  execute  judgment 
upon  him.  Felix  also  hoped  the  Christians  might 
bribe  him  to  release  Paul  (24:26).  Paul  was  re- 
quested by  Felix  and  his  wife  Drusilla  to  explain 
Christianity  to  them,  which  he  did  with  such  effec- 
tiveness that  Felix  trembled  and  would  hear  only  a 
little  at  a  time  (24:24,  25).  Paul  was  not  a  confined 
prisoner,  nor  were  his  friends  forbidden  to  visit  or 
communicate  with  him  (24:23).  No  doubt  Paul  may 
have  longed  to  be  free  to  revisit  his  churches,  but  the 
two  years  of  enforced  leisure  gave  him  a  much  needed 
rest,  and  allowed  him  some  time  in  which  to  crystal- 
lize his  doctrines  in  the  form  of  certain  last  Letters 
to  various  churches. 

(b)  The  Trial  Before  Festus. — After  the  two  years 
under  the  protection  of  Felix,  the  latter  was  replaced 
by  Porcius  Festus.  The  Jews  sought  anew  to  get 
possession  of  the  person  of  Paul.  Festus  began  to 
vacillate  in  his  decisions,  and  Paul,  foreseeing  the 
probable  result,  appealed  promptly  to  the  tribunal  of 
Caesar  (25:11).  Before  his  departure  he  was  ex- 
amined by  Herod  Agrippa,  tetrarch  of  Galilee,  and  the 
latter's  sister,  Bernice,  who  came  to  pay  Festus  a  com- 
plimentary visit  (25:  13).  In  Acts  26  we  have  Paul's 
story  of  his  life  told  in  a  most  eloquent  manner  by 
the  prisoner,  again  with  such  effect  that  it  penetrated 
deeply  into  the  mind  of  the  king  (26:  2S).  To  Festus 
it  seemed  as  if  Paul  were  an  educated  fanatic  (26:24), 
though   Paul  replied  to  him  in  a  very  non-fanatical 


i64  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

manner  (26:25).  To  Agrippa's  reproof,  Paul  very 
generously  responded  with  the  wish  that  everyone 
within  his  hearing  were  as  he  himself,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  being  prisoners  in  chains  (26:  29). 

13.  Paul's  Voyage  to  Italy  (Acts  27  to  28 :  16). — The 
narrative  of  Luke  concerning  the  voyage  to  Italy  is 
not  only  fascinating  reading  from  the  standpoint  of 
adventure,  but  is  also  a  priceless  document  concerning 
the  ships  and  navigation  of  the  ancient  world.  Festus 
delivered  Paul  into  the  charge  of  Julius,  a  courteous 
and  liberal  centurion  (Acts  2^] \  i,  3),  who  put  him  on 
a  boat  of  Alexandria  sailing  for  Italy  (27 : 6),  together 
with  Luke  and  Aristarchus,  the  Thessalonican  disci- 
ple {2y\2),  who  probably  posed  as  Paul's  servants  in 
order  to  be  able  to  accompany  him.  None  of  the  com- 
pany aboard  this  ship  intended  or  expected  to  land  at 
Crete  or  Malta  (Melita,  in  Latin)  when  they  embarked ; 
and  the  fact  that  the  captain  disregarded  Paul's  ad- 
vice against  sailing  from  Fair  Havens,  Crete  (27:  8-10), 
led  to  the  shipwreck  at  Malta  (28:1).  After  three 
months'  delay  (28:  11),  the  last  lap  of  the  voyage  was 
safely  made,  by  way  of  Syracuse,  noted  for  its  "Ear  of 
Dionysius,"  its  Fountain  of  Arethusa,  and  its  having 
been  the  home  of  Archimedes,  the  scientist  and  mathe- 
matician, inventor  of  the  burning-glass,  and  discoverer 
of  the  principles  of  the  lever  and  of  specific  gravity; 
Rhegium,  or  Reggio,  where  Scylla  and  Charybdis,  the 
rock  and  the  whirlpool,  are  located ;  Puteoli,  the  mod- 
ern city  of  Naples ;  and  up  the  Appian  Way  past  the 
Three  Taverns,  where  Paul  and  his  company  were  re- 
ceived by  a  delegation  of  Christians  (28:  15),  through 
the  Capuan  Gate  into  the  Eternal  City. 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  165 

14.    Paul  in  Rome.— When  St.  Paul  entered  Rome 
over  the  very  same  road  on  which  Pompey  and  Caesar 
and  many  other  Roman  military  heroes  had  passed  in 
^or^eous   triumph,   he   looked   little   like   the   man   des- 
tined to  overcome  by  his  influence  the  City  of  the 
Seven  Hills.     No  chariot  carried  his  weary  body;  no 
vast  equipage  of  followers  trailed  in  his  wake ;  stained 
with  travel  afoot,  escaped  from  shipwreck,  gray-haired 
and  broken  in  body,  an  iron  chain  bound  to  one  arm, 
yet  he  passed  beneath  the  Porta  Capena  the  greatest 
victor  who  had  ever  graced  the  precincts  of  Rome  with 
his  presence,  before  or  since.     Paul  was  confined  to 
his  own  hired  house,  accompanied  always  by  a  soldier 
who  guarded  him,  where  he  may  have  indicted  a  few 
of  his  letters,  and  for  two  years  taught  the  Gospel 
without  interference,  while  awaiting  trial  before  the 
bar  of  Nero  (Acts  28:30,  30-     He  occupied  himself 
busily  in  many  other  ways:    probably  he  converted 
some  of  the  soldiers  who  guarded  him,  and  who,  ac- 
customed to  brutality  and  excess  in  all  forms  under 
their  wicked  emperor,  could  not  fail  to  be  impressed 
by  such  a  life  as  his. 

At  this  point  he  disappears  from  history.  Probably 
he  was  never  a  free  man  again.  Possibly  he  was  put 
to  death  in  the  Neronian  persecution  of  64  A.  D.  It 
is  noticeable  how  very  abruptly  the  Book  of  Acts  ends. 
Is  there  a  lost  sequel?  Is  it  left  not  "brought  up  to 
date"  by  the  author  at  the  end  of  Acts  28?  Does  he, 
as  Goodspeed  suggests,  stop,  fearing  an  anticlimax, 
and  preferring  to  continue  his  treatment  of  Paul's 
life  so  as  to  end  with  a  note  of  triumph  and  joy?  Are 
the  famous  Prison  Epistles  written  from  Rome?  These 


i66  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

are  pertinent  and  suggestive  questions.  Some  o^  them 
must  remain  unanswered  probably  until  the  end  of 
time.  Tradition  tells  us  that  St.  Paul  was  beheaded 
outside  the  city  walls  of  Rome,  near  the  tomb  of  Caius 
Cestius,  and  that  he  was  buried  under  what  is  now 
the  site  of  the  magnificent  Cathedral  of  St.  Paul  With- 
out the  Walls.  The  distinguished  Italian  archaeolo- 
gist, Rudolfo  Lanciari,  tells  us  that  on  December  i, 
1891,  he  located  the  tomb  of  Paul  under  the  crypt  of 
this  church,  and  that  there  was  a  slab  labelled :  "Paolo 
Apostolo  Mart," — Paul,  the  Apostle  and  Marytr.^ 
Colossians-Ephesians,  Philemon,  and  Philippians  are 
so-called  "Prison  Epistles."  It  remains  for  us  to  dis- 
cuss them  briefly. 

The  Colossians-Ephesians  Problem 

The  Colossians-Ephesians  Problem  involves  pri- 
marily the  question  of  the  authorship  of  these  letters. 
A  careful  comparative  reading  of  the  two  will  reveal 
the  fact  that  Ephesians  often  repeats  or  resembles  ten 
words  at  a  time  numerous  passages  in  Colossians.  For 
example,  let  the  reader  read  Colossians  3 :  18-25,  and 
then  verse  at  a  time  compare  it  with  Ephesians  5 :  22, 
25,  and  6:  I,  4,  5,  6,  7,  8,  9.  Further  comparison  will 
reveal  that, 

Colossians  2:8         =  Ephesians  5  :  6. 

Colossians  3  :  5,  8     =  Ephesians  5  :  3,  4. 

Colossians  3  :  16,  17=  Ephesians  5  :  19,  20. 

In  other  words,  using  a  compound  proportion,  Ephe- 
sians is  to  Colossians  as  II  Thessalonians  is  to  I  Thes- 

^See  "In  the  Footsteps  of  St.  Paul,"  by  Francis  E.  Clark, 
D.D.,  LL.D.    (Putnam,  1917),  pp.  397-399. 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  167 

salonians.  Ephesians  is  a  reflex  of  Colossians.  If 
Colossians  is  of  Paul's  writing,  then  Ephesians  is 
pseudo-Pauline  in  all  probability.  We  shall  discuss 
this  further  presently. 

I.    Paul's  Letter  to  the  Colossians 

In  reading  the  discussion  on  Colossians,  the  reader 
should  read  to  parallel  it  the  material  on  Paul's  Letter 
to  Philemon,  the  latter  being  a  wealthy  resident  of 
Colossae,  and  a  Christian  of  Paul's  conversion.  Colos- 
sae  is  a  town  of  Phrygia  in  Asia  Minor,  in  the  valley 
of  the  river  Lycus,  165  miles  east  of  Ephesus,  the 
nearest  metropolis.  Paul  has  never  been  there  (Col. 
1 : 4  and  2 :  i).  At  the  time  of  writing  he  is  in  prison 
(see  our  discussion  of  the  Letter  to  Philemon),  and  this 
is  one  of  the  famous  prison  epistles.  One  of  his  de- 
tention companions  is  Epaphras,  of  Colossae  (Col. 
1:6-8).  Paul  sends  the  Letter  to  the  Colossians  by 
Tychicus,  an  Ephesian  (Acts  20:4;  21:29;  Col.  4:7 
on),  and  also  sends  with  the  latter  Onesimus,  a  run- 
away slave  (Col.  5^7-9;  Philemon  10). 

The  subject-matter  of  the  Letter  to  the  Colossians 
is  meant  to  be  an  antidote  to  an  old  heresy  which  in 
some  form  Paul  had  fought  all  his  life,  and  which 
now  had  resumed  its  attack  on  Colossae.  Some  of  the 
elements  of  this  heresy,  which  is  not  so  clearly  defined 
as  it  is  in  the  Letter  to  the  Galatians,  are : 

1.  Asceticism:  2:  16. 

2.  Judaism:   2:  11. 

3.  False  Philosophy:  2:8  and  20  ("rudiments" 
meaning  rules  of  form  and  externality,  rather  than 
rules  of  spirit).     Paul  is  unusually  "cosmic"   (imper- 


i68  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

sonal,  universal  in  his  discussion  of  Christian  prin- 
ciples) in  this  letter, — something  that  he  tends  to  avoid 
in  the  other  letters  which  we  know  to  be  from  his 
hand.  This  is  particularly  noticeable  in  Col.  i  and 
2:9,  10.  It  is  further  shown  from  the  fact  that  Col. 
1:3-8;  9-18;  21-29:  and  2:8-12,  13-15,  are  all  single, 
breathless,  labored  sentences.  Col.  i :  15-20  is  "cos- 
mic'* and  not  characteristically  Pauline,  but  on  the 
other  hand  Col.  i :  1-14  is  distinctly  Pauline.  Col.  2:  9, 
10  and  17-19  are  not  typically  Pauline.  Therefore, 
some  scholars  reject  Colossians  as  not  of  Paul's  au- 
thorship, but  this  is  a  radical  view.  Some  take  a  com- 
promise view,  such  as  Von  Soden  and  Holtzmann,  who 
believe  it  to  be  of  Pauline  authorship,  but  that  Col. 
I  and  2  may  not  have  been  handed  down  without  re- 
vision and  re-editing  to  make  it  apply  to  the  later 
doctrinal  needs  of  the  church.  The  letter  as  a  whole 
seems  to  be  clearly  Pauline. 

II.    The  Letter  to  the  Ephesians 

The  Letter  to  the  Ephesians  is  almost  totally  "cos- 
mic." It  reads  more  like  a  catholic,  pseudo-Pauline 
letter.  There  is  no  note  of  personal  reference  after 
Paul  had  lived  there  for  over  three  years  (Acts  20: 
31).  Certainly  this  is  not  a  characteristic  of  the  Apos- 
tle Paul,  who  never  forgot  to  mention  his  friends  in- 
dividually or  collectively,  or  both,  in  his  letters  to  his 
churches.  Ephesians  1:15  and  3:2  casually  remark 
that  the  author  "has  heard"  of  the  faith  of  the  Ephe- 
sians !  Would  Paul  write  like  this  to  people  whom  he 
had  long  known?  The  author,  with  Colossians  lying 
before  him  as  he  writes,  in  this  respect  has  adopted  the 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  169 

language  of  Colossians  1:4.  Or  is  Ephesians  a  letter 
making  the  rounds  of  a  circuit,  as  McGififert,  Zahn,  and 
many  other  New  Testament  scholars  believe?  (The 
"Circular  Letter  Theory,"  mentioned  in  Col.  4:16, 
which  Paul  used  to  keep  news  of  his  welfare  and  es- 
tate in  circulation  for  the  benefit  of  the  churches).  Or 
is  Ephesians  a  post-Pauline  letter,  a  catholic,  or  gen- 
eral letter,  as  Coleridge  asserts  in  his  "Table  Talk"? 

We  have  already  noted  the  curious  resemblance  be- 
tween Ephesians  and  Colossians,  which  leads  us  to 
think  that  the  former  simply  mirrors  the  latter,  with- 
out the  warmth  and  affectionate  eagerness  of  the  per- 
sonality of  Paul.  Furthermore,  does  Paul  ever  speak 
of  himself,  once  a  persecutor  of  the  church,  as  "holy"? 
(Eph.  3:5).  He  indicates  rather  the  opposite  in  I 
Corinthians  (Cor.  B)  15:9.  In  I  Cor.  (B)  3:11,  Paul 
can  conceive  of  Christ  as  the  only  foundation  of  the 
church  of  God,  while  Eph.  2 :  20  asserts  that  the  apos- 
tles and  prophets  constitute  the  foundations ! 

As  we  have  noted,  Colossians  contains  some  remark- 
ably long  sentences,  but  Ephesians  outstrips  the  for- 
mer in  this  respect.  Ephesians  1:3-14  and  15-23;  2: 
1-9;  and  3:  1-17  are,  in  the  Greek  of  the  original,  all 
single  sentences.  Norden,  a  German  scholar,  who  is 
the  world's  greatest  living  authority  on  Greek  prose, 
says  that  "Ephesians  i :  3-14  is  the  most  monstrous 
"conglomeration  of  clauses"  he  has  "ever  seen  in  the 
whole  range  of  the  Greek  language."  He  also  calls 
attention  to  the  fact  that  there  are  forty-four  Greek 
words  in  Ephesians  not  found  elsewhere  in  all  of  Paul's 
writings.  Jiilicher  is  undetermined  as  to  its  author- 
ship, but  Moffatt,  von  Soden,  etc.,  declare  it  to  be  un- 


170  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

deniably  pseudo-Pauline.  If  Paul  wrote  it,  its  pecu- 
liarities must  be  added  to  our  estimate  of  Paul.  If  not, 
it  must  be  considered  a  pseudonymous  epistle,  writ- 
ten using  Colossians  as  a  model  and  pattern,  to  meet 
the  needs  of  the  post-Pauline  church  at  Ephesus  and 
elsewhere.  Bacon  simply  welds  the  two  letters  into 
a  compound  name  when  speaking  of  the  problem  of 
their  origins:  Colossians-Ephesians.  Certainly,  the 
two  letters  should  be  studied  side  by  side. 

Paul's  Letter  to  Philemon 

The  Letter  of  Paul  to  Philemon  is  a  beautiful  model 
of  a  delicate  and  tactful  letter  to  a  friend.  Philemon 
was  a  resident  of  Colossae  in  Phrygia  (compare  Col. 
4:9  with  Philemon  11).  He  had  been  converted  by 
Paul  (Philemon  19)  possibly  at  Ephesus  during  Paul's 
three  years'  stay  in  that  city  (Acts  19).  A  man  of 
wealth  given  to  charity  (vv.  5-7),  a  Christian  propa- 
gandist (v.  i),  using  his  own  home  as  a  meeting-house 
for  his  religion  (v.  2),  he  apparently  was  a  distin- 
guished friend  and  follower  of  Paul.  Charles  Kings- 
ley  said  of  this  epistle :  *Tt  is  the  most  civil,  kindly, 
gentleman-like  speech  I  know  of  on  earth." 

Onesimus  (Col.  4:9;  Philemon  10),  a  runaway  slave 
of  Philemon's,  is  the  subject  of  the  letter.  Usually 
runaway  slaves  were  tortured  to  death  or  perhaps 
crucified  as  an  example  of  their  fellow-bondsmen.  One- 
simus took  chances  in  going  back,  for  slaves  were 
regarded  in  ancient  times  by  their  masters  as  merely 
utensils,  not  human  beings.  Varro,  a  Roman  histor- 
ian,   classified    agricultural    implements    into    three 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  171 

groups:  (i)  Inarticulate,  such  as  wagons  and  carts 
and  plows:  (2)  semi-articulate,  such  as  oxen  and  other 
beasts  of  burden,  and  (3)  articulate,  or  human  slaves. 
The  contempt  of  Cicero  for  slaves  gives  an  insight 
into  the  ancient  attitude.  Onesimus  did  not  have  to 
return.  He  might  have  given  Tychicus  the  slip  (Col. 
4:7-9).  He  returned,  of  course,  to  be  a  slave.  Paul, 
being  a  child  of  his  own  times,  did  not  suggest  his 
emancipation,  but  naturally  accepts  the  institution  of 
slavery  without  criticism.  Paul  elsewhere,  however, 
does  recognize  a  sphere  of  life  in  which  there  is  neither 
bond  nor  free,  and  lays  down  far  in  advance  of  his 
own  time  the  fundamental  principle  of  democracy 
(Col.  3:11;  Gal.  3:28;  I  Cor,  7:20-24). 

Colossians,  Philippians,  and  Philemon  are  the  fa- 
mous "Prison  Epistles"  of  Paul.  Were  the  prison  epis- 
tles written  from  prison  in  Caesarea,  Rome,  or  Ephe- 
sus?  Lisco's  theory  is  that  Paul  probably  wrote  them 
from  Ephesus,  and  he  is  supported  in  this  by  Deiss- 
mann.  Lake,  Bacon,  Robinson,  Goguel;  and  other 
scholars.  The  style  and  mood  fit  the  Ephesian  period. 
The  "household  of  Caesar"  (Philippians  4:22)  simply 
means  the  personnel  of  the  imperial  establishment  (of 
the  Roman  governor).  Colossae  is  950  miles  from 
Rome  as  the  crow  flies,  and  1200  by  the  regular  route 
by  sea.  It  is  a  church  Paul  has  never  seen  (Col.  1 : 4). 
Paul  asks  Philemon  to  receive  Onesimus,  who  has 
run  away,  but  did  Onesimus  "run  away"  1200  miles? 
It  would  be  as  if  Onesimus  lived  in  St.  Louis  and  ran 
away  to  London.  Ephesus  is  the  nearest  metropolis 
to  Colossae.  It  may  be  quite  probable  that  Ephesus 
is  the  source  of  the  prison  epistles. 


172  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 
Paul's  Letter  to  the  Philippians 

The  most  recent  scholarship  has  tended  to  view 
Paul's  Letter  to  the  Philippians  as  the  third  and  last 
of  the  Prison  Epistles,  and  as  probably  the  last  letter 
that  Paul  ever  wrote.  On  the  whole  Philippians  is  a 
very  clear  and  unquestionable  Pauline  document.  It 
is  the  most  warm,  cordial,  and  affectionate  of  all  his 
letters.  Paul,  it  will  be  recalled,  founded  this  church 
on  the  Second  Journey,  and  he  made  an  exception  of 
accepting  gifts  of  money  from  it,  twice  at  Thessa- 
lonica,  once  at  Corinth,  and  he  has  just  received  an- 
other in  prison  which  was  brought  by  Epaphroditus 
(Philippians  2:25-30;  4:  15-19).  Paul  has  been  ill  in 
prison  (2:  26,  27) ;  he  will  send  Timothy  to  them  with 
news  of  the  outcome  of  his  trial  (2:19-23);  but  he 
trusts  that  he  himself  will  be  released  to  make  the 
trip  (2:24).  "Paul,  smiling  through  his  tears,  writes 
the  letter  to  the  Philippians,"  says  Bacon.  He  puts 
the  best  face  on  the  whole  matter.  The  whole  tone  is 
that  of  farewell,  but  its  keynote  is  joy  and  rejoicing. 
The  smiles  and  tears  of  Philippians  are  especially  note- 
worthy (2:2;  3:  18).  So  is  the  loving  tribute  of  the 
apostle  to  his  beloved  companion,  the  youthful  Tim- 
othy (2:19-23).  The  authenticity  of  Philippians  is 
well  established.  Although  "bishops"  are  mentioned 
for  the  first  time  in  i :  i,  the  sudden  turn  of  3 :  2  against 
the  Judaizers  has  a  familiar  ring.  If  Philippians  is 
Paul's  last  epistle,  it  is  a  fitting  conclusion  to  the  life 
of  one  of  the  most  remarkable  and  wonderful  men 
whom  the  world  has  ever  known. 


PART  III:    APPENDIX  A.     EXPRESSIONS  ST. 
PAUL  HAS  MADE  PROVERBIAL 

"Against  hope  believed  in  hope":  Romans  4:  18. 

"The  wages  of  sin  is  death" :   Romans  6 :  23. 

"The  potter  and  the  clay":   Romans  9:21. 

"Given  to  hospitality":    Romans  12:13. 

"Be  not  wise  in  your  own  conceit":   Romans  12:  16. 

"Heaping  coals  of  fire  on  his  head"  :  Romans  12 :  20. 

"Confounding  the  mighty" :    I  Corinthians  i :  27. 

"I  have  planted,  Apollos  watered;  but  God  gave  the 

increase" :    I  Cor.  3 :  6. 
"Absent  in  body,  but  present  in  spirit" :  I  Cor.  5:3. 
"All  things  to  all  men":    I  Cor.  9:  12. 
"Take  heed  lest  he  fall":   I  Cor.  10:  12. 
"Sounding  brass  and  tinkling  cymbal":  I  Cor.  13  :  i. 
"Not  puflfed  up":   I  Cor.    13:4. 

"When  I  was  a  child,  I  spake  as  a  child" :  I  Cor.  13 :  11. 
"Now  we  see  through  a  glass,  darkly" :   I  Cor.  13 :  12. 
"If  the  trumpet  give  an  uncertain  sound" :  I  Cor.  14 :  8. 
"Of  the  earth,  earthy":   I  Cor.  15:47. 
"In  the  twinkling  of  an  eye":   I  Cor.  15:  52. 
"The  letter  killeth,  but  the  spirit  giveth  life" :   II  Cor. 

3:6. 
"Plainness  of  speech":   II  Cor.  3:  12. 
"Rude  in  speech":   II  Cor.  11:6. 
"A  thorn  in  the  flesh":   II  Cor.  12:7.         ', 
■        173 


174  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

"Right  hand  of  fellowship"  :   Galatians  2 :  9. 

^'Whatsoever  a  man  soweth,  that  shall  he  also  reap": 
Galatians  6:  7. 

"Passeth  all  understanding" :   Philippians  4:7. 

**In  whatsoever  state  I  am,  to  be  content":  Philip- 
pians 4:11. 

"Touch  not;  taste  not;  handle  not":    Colossians  2:21. 

"Labour  of  love"  :   I  Thessalonians  i :  3. 

"Hold  fast  to  that  which  is  good" :   I  Thess.  5  :  21. 

"If  God  be  for  us,  who  can  be  against  us?":    Romans 

8:31. 

"No  man  liveth  or  dieth  to  himself  alone"  :  Rom.  14:  7. 
"Abhor  that  which  is  evil":   Rom.  12:9. 
"Render  tribute  to  whom  tribute  is  due":   Rom.  13:  7. 
"Your  body  is  the  temple  of  the  Holy  Ghost" :   I  Cor. 

6:  19. 
"Knowledge  puff eth  up,  but  love  buildeth  up" :   I  Cor. 

8:1. 
"Temperate  in  all  things":    I  Cor.  9:25. 
"Quit  yourselves  like  men":   I  Cor.  16:  13. 
"Power  matures  in  weakness":   H  Cor.  12:9. 
"I  live,  yet  not  I,  but  Christ  in  me" :   Gal.  2 :  20. 
"I  press  toward  the  mark" :   Phil.  3:14. 
"Whatsoever  things  are  true  .  .  .  lovely,"  etc.:    Phil. 

4:8. 
"Set  your  affections  on  things  above" :   Col.  3 :  2. 
"Abstain  from  all  appearance  of  evil" :   I  Thess.  5 :  22. 
"Loss  of  all  things,  and  do  count  them  but  dung": 

Phil.  3 : 8. 
"I  have  fought  the  good  fight":   II  Tim.  4:7. 


PART  IV 
THE  GENERAL  OR  UNIVERSAL  LETTERS 


PART    IV 
THE  GENERAL  OR  UNIVERSAL  LETTERS 


I.    THE  PASTORAL  EPISTLES:    I  AND  II 
TIMOTHY  AND  TITUS 

Even  a  majority  of  conservative  scholars  do  not  now 
attribute  First  and  Second  Timothy  and  Titus,  in  their 
present  form,  at  least,  to  Paul.  Let  us  examine  the 
reasons  for  this  from  evidence  both  internal  and  ex- 
ternal, as  we  would  go  about  fixing,  for  instance,  the 
date  of  any  given  Shakespearean  play. 

1.    Internal  Evidence: 

1.  Paul,  if  he  wrote  these  letters,  wrote  as  to 
strangers  (I  Tim.  2:7;  4:12-16;  II  Tim.  1:6-8; 
2:21-22).  For  Paul's  real  opinion  of  Timothy, 
warm,  personal,  and  affectionate,  read  Philippians 
2 : 19-22. 

2.  The  author  warns  his  correspondents  against 
the  most  elementary  vices.  Timothy  and  Titus 
are  treated  as  though  their  character  might  be  a 
matter  of  doubt.  Evidently,  then,  the  letters  are 
catholic,  that  is,  general,  universal,  addressed  in 
this  instance  to  all  young  ministers.  In  fact,  sev- 
eral passages  in  the  Pastoral  Epistles  (so-called 
from  the  Latin  ''pastor,"  a  shepherd  or  minister) 

177 


178  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

are  used  by  various  churches  in  the  ordination 
services  of  young  ministers. 

3.  There  are,  in  the  Greek,  seventy-four  words 
in  I  Timothy,  forty-six  in  H  Timothy,  and  twenty- 
eight  in  Titus,  never  found  elsewhere  in  Paul's 
letters. 

4.  Paul  wrote  inspired  letters.  The  Pastoral 
Epistles  compared  to  his  are  uninspired.  They 
deal  in  a  common-place,  prosaic  fashion  with  or- 
thodoxy and  "sound  doctrine."  The  latter  phrase 
is  used  repeatedly. 

5.  There  is  no  reference  to  Paulinism  or  Paul- 
ine doctrines;  no  "justification,"  no  "old  man  and 
new  man,"  no  passion,  fire,  genius,  or  mysticism. 
The  word  "piety"  occurs  eleven  times  in  Greek 
and  four  times  in  its  cognate  Greek  derivations. 

6.  The  Pastorals  deal  with  church  ordination. 

7.  The  personal  references  do  not  fit  in  with 
Paul's  life  as  we  know  it  (H  Timothy  1:8;  i :  16- 
18;  4:6;  4:  12;  Titus  3:  12).  These  things  hap- 
pened long  before  the  writing  of  the  pastorals. 
Timothy  was  along:  and  Trophimus  (Acts  21 :  29) 
went  up  to  Jerusalem  with  Paul  and  was  the  inno- 
cent cause  of  his  troubles  and  arrest. 

II.    External  Evidence: 

I.  One  theory  held  to  explain  the  Pauline  bio- 
graphical allusions  in  the  Pastorals  is  that  there 
was  a  Fourth  Missionary  Journey  of  Paul  to  Cor- 
inth, Miletus,  Troas,  etc.,  not  recorded  in  Acts  or 
elsewhere.     But  one  assumes  the  Pastorals  to  be 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  179 

genuinely  Pauline  for  this,  and  all  internal  evi- 
dence is  overwhelmingly  against  it.  All  the  evi- 
dence of  the  church  fathers  Clement,  Origen, 
Jerome,  etc.,  refers  to  the  death  of  Paul  after  his 
first  imprisonment.  In  Acts  20,  Paul  says  his 
final  good-bye  to  the  Ephesian  elders  with  tears. 
Burton,  Goodspeed,  Bowen,  and  others  assume 
this  to  be  Luke's  way  of  breaking  the  news  That 
Paul  was  dead  at  the  time  of  the  writing  of  Acts, 
a  much  more  artistic  way  of  doing  so  than  by 
tacking  on  a  postscript  labelled:  "Poor  Paul  is 
dead."  Matthew  does  the  same  thing  with  re- 
gard to  announcing  the  deaths  of  James  and  John 
(Matthew  20:20-23). 

2.  Paul  says  in  his  last  writings  that  he  intends 
to  go  from  Rome  to  Spain  (Romans  15:28),  that 
he  is  done  with  the  East  forever  (Romans  15:23, 
24).  Evangelizing  virgin  soil  was  Paul's  mis- 
sionary principle.  Had  he  been  released  from  his 
first  imprisonment,  he  would  have  gone  to  Spain, 
not  back  to  Corinth,  Miletus,  Troas,  and  the  rest. 

Many  scholars  believe  the  Pastorals  to  contain  in- 
serted Pauline  fragments:  (H  Timothy  1:15-18  and 
4:  9-22;  Titus  3  :  9-23),  just  as  Ephesians  quotes  Colos- 
sians  often  ten  words  at  a  time. 

n.  THE  LETTER  TO  THE  HEBREWS 

Until  recently  the  traditionalists  and  conservatives 
stoutly  maintained  that  Paul  wrote  the  Letter  to  the 
Hebrews,  but  this  theory  is  gradually  being  dispelled 


i8o  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

by  a  calm  and  impartial  view  of  the  document  based 
upon  continued  modern  research.  The  document  it- 
self apparently  has  no  idea  of  being  a  letter  until 
chapter  13,  verse  22.  It  begins  like  a  sermon  or  hom- 
ily. It  is  not  addressed  to  either  Jews  or  Jewish  Chris- 
tians, but  probably  to  the  "spiritual  Israel,"  which 
would  include  Gentiles  as  well. 

By  the  end  of  the  first  century,  this  document  is 
well-known,  though  not  included  in  Marcion's  Canon. 
Origen  says,  "God  only  knows  who  wrote  it.'*  Clem- 
ent and  Jerome  say  that  it  does  not  matter  who  wrote 
it :  it  is  orthodox.  Luther  remarks  :  "Probably  Apol- 
los  wrote  it."  Calvin  thinks  that  Clement  or  Luke 
wrote  it.  Harnack  caused  quite  a  stir  some  years  ago 
by  alleging  it  to  have  been  written  by  a  woman,  pos- 
sibly Priscilla,  a  view  with  which  Peake  sympathizes. 
Unfortunately  the  expression  "If  I  were  to  relate" 
(Heb.  II :  32)  in  the  Greek  has  a  masculine  participle, 
which  explodes  this  conception.  The  author  of  this 
homily,  whoever  he  may  be,  is  the  best  stylist  of  the 
New  Testament. 

Hebrews  is  a  sermon  or  homily  given  an  epistolary 
turn  near  the  last  to  gain  attention  as  this  form  of 
writing  seemed  particularly  able  to  do  in  that  day. 
Apparently  it  is  designed  to  arouse  new  ardor  and 
enthusiasm  by  holding  Christianity  above  all  other 
faiths,  especially  Judaism,  its  rival  and  mother.  It  is 
hortatory  in  tone  and  expression,  and  for  literary 
beauty  exceeds  in  style  all  other  documents  of  the  New 
Testament. 

In  reading  the  letter  one  should  note  especially  chap- 
ter 9,  which  defines  in  some  detail  the  meaning  and 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  i8i 

origin  of  the  p^irase,  "The  New  Testament" ;  and  chap- 
ter II,  often  called  "The  Roll-Call  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment," and  "Heroes  of  Faith."  Hebrews  ii  again 
demonstrates  to  us  WHY  the  New  Testament  was 
written,  as  well  as  the  Old,  because  the  authors  were 
"inspired,"  by  which  we  mean  that  they  were  under 
the  spell  of  an  overpowering  religious  conviction  which 
they  wished  to  communicate  to  other  people. 

HI.    THE  LETTER  OF  JAMES 

In  the  Greek  version  this  letter  is  entitled  JACOB 
instead  of  James.  In  English  literature  the  adjective 
"Jacobean"  is  often  applied  to  the  reign  of  James  I  of 
England,  the  era  immediately  succeeding  the  Eliza- 
bethan, because  of  the  etymological  association  of  the 
names  Jacob  and  James.  The  writer  of  this  document 
does  not  reveal  his  identity,  and  the  name  given  it  is 
exceedingly  common.  It  is  not  epistolary  except  for 
the  first  verse  of  the  first  chapter.  It  begins  like  a 
letter,  whereas  Hebrews,  as  we  have  seen,  ends  like  a 
letter. 

This  document  is  exceedingly  valuable,  although  the 
name  of  Jesus  is  only  twice  mentioned  (i :  i ;  2:  i).  It 
is  practical,  sane,  common  sense,  and  wholesome.  It 
is  a  collection  of  aphorisms  after  the  principle  of  the 
Book  of  Proverbs.  James  would  have  us  rightly  re- 
spect and  esteem  the  poor  as  well  as  the  rich.  The 
celebrated  chapter  3,  on  bridling  an  unruly  tongue,  is 
one  of  the  world's  great  literary  and  ethical  master- 
pieces. James'  definition  of  religion  (1:27),  and  his 
comment  on  the  briefness  of  human  life   (4:14)  are 


i82  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

often  quoted.  Theologians  have  made  much  in  times 
gone  by  of  the  apparent  controversy  of  James  with 
Paulinism  (James  2),  or  works  as  against  faith  alone, 
which  led  Luther  to 'become  hostile  to  this  document. 
"An  epistle  of  straw,"  as  he  calls  it. 

Like  Hebrews,  James  is  a  homily,  and  therefore 
horatatory  in  tone  and  form.  Jiilicher  counted  and 
found  fifty-four  imperative  verbs  to  the  total  of  one 
hundred  and  eight  verses  of  James. 

IV.    THE  FIRST  LETTER  OF  PETER 

The  First  Letter  of  Peter  is  a  striking  example  of 
the  style  and  spirit  of  Paul.  It  is  addressed  to  Paul's 
churches  (1:1).  The  un-Pauline  things  about  it  are: 
(i)  It  presupposes  a  persecution  (1:7);  and  (2)  the 
author  calls  himself  an  elder  (5:1).  The  moral  ex- 
hortations are  strikingly  after  the  manner  and  lan- 
guage of  Paul;  and  Romans  12  and  13  are  embodied 
in  I  Peter.     For  example: 

I  Peter  3:  8    =  Romans  12:  16. 

I  Peter  3  :  9    =  Romans  12:  17. 

I  Peter  3  :  1 1  =  Romans  12 :  18. 

Also,  I  Peter  2:  13-17  is  re-embodied  in  Romans  13: 
1-7.  A  careful  reading  of  I  Peter  i  and  2  parallel  with 
Romans  12  and  13  will  further  emphasize  the  very 
remarkable  similarity. 

It  is  supposed  that  the  ''Babylon"  referred  to  in  5 :  13 
of  this  epistle  is  understood  to  mean  Rome.  The  fiery 
trials  and  the  exhortations  to  remain  constant  likely 
refer  to  the  persecution  of  Domitian  over  Asia  Minor 
in  the  90's,  or  to  that  of  Trajan,  shortly  after  100.    It 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  183 

therefore  is  probably  a  pseudo-Petrine  document,  be- 
cause Peter  was  now  dead,  and  he  knew  no  Greek, 
oral  or  written.  Verse  i  of  chapter  i  was  added  not 
only  to  address  the  churches  of  Asia,  but  probably  also 
to  give  the  letter  a  status  in  the  canon. 

V.  THE  SECOND  LETTER  OF  PETER 


The  Second  Letter  of  Peter  is  a  revised  edition  of 
Jude,  just  as  Ephesians  is  of  Colossians,  and  I  Peter 
of  Romans  12  and  13.  The  author  writes  a  prefix 
(chapter  i)  to  his  re-edition  of  Jude  and  adds  an  ap- 
pendix (chapter  3).  Comparative  readings  of  H  Peter 
and  Jude  will  reveal  what  Harnack  calls  "a  forgery" 
and  "sailing  under  false  pretences"  but  Bacon  reminds 
us  that  ''neither  plagiarism  nor  pseudonymity  were 
recognized  offences  at  the  time ;  so  that  we  can  brin^ 
no  indictment  against  H  Peter  were  he  the  apostle  or 
not." 

A  comparison  of  H  Peter  and  Jude  will  be  illuminat- 
ing to  the  reader,  and  will  reveal  among  other  things 
the  following: 

H  Peter  2:1    =  Jude    4. 

n  Peter  2:  4    =  Jude    6 

n  Peter  2:  6    =  Jude    7 

n  Peter  2:7=  Jude    8 

n  Peter  2:  II  =  Jude    9 

n  Peter  2:12  =  Jude  10. 

n  Peter  2:  13  =  Jude  12. 

H  Peter  2:  17  =  Jude  13. 

H  Peter  2:  18  =r  Jude  16. 

The  date  of  the  writing  of  this  document  has  never 


i84  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

been  fixed  with  general  satisfaction.  150  A.  D.  is  a 
fair  estimate.  Certainly  the  letter  is  never  heard  of  in 
the  second  century,  and  the  Council  at  Laodicea,  372 
A.  D.,  is  the  first  historic  evidence  of  its  appearance 
in  the  canon. 

The  theme  of  the  letter  is  the  delay  of  the  Second 
Coming  of  Jesus.  Mark  13  :  30  had  promised  from  the 
lips  of  Jesus  himself :  "Verily  I  say  unto  you,  that  this 
generation  shall  not  pass,  till  all  these  things  (the 
Second  Coming  of  the  Son  of  Man  with  the  angels) 
be  done."  As  the  years  passed  on,  however,  a  re- 
vision of  opinion  became  necessary,  and  in  the  late 
documents  of  the  New  Testament  there  is  a  pathetic 
and  conscious  effort  to  bolster  up  the  faith  of  the  Chris- 
tians of  the  second  century  with  regard  to  the  expected 
Parousia.  It  is  evident  in  H  Peter  3:4:  "And  saying, 
Where  is  the  promise  of  his  coming?  for  since  the 
fathers  fell  asleep,  all  things  continue  as  they  were 
from  the  beginning  of  the  creation."  There  is  no  doubt 
that  at  the  time  this  document  was  written,  the  eager 
expectation  of  the  Second  Coming  was  on  the  wane, 
and  primitive  people  with  primitive  instincts  to  re- 
strain, tended  to  relax  and  become  decadent,  as  many 
Christians  in  the  modern  world  tend  to  do.  The  Doke- 
tists  were  particularly  active  and  radical  in  repudiating 
the  Advent  in  its  supernatural  aspect.  They  were 
looked  upon  as  the  religious  Bolshevists  of  their  day. 
Against  them  the  second  chapter  of  H  Peter  is  directed 
in  the  language  used  originally  by  Jude.  In  reading 
this  epistle  the  following  curious  verses  also  should  be 
noted :  2 :  22 ;  3  :  10 ;  and  3:15,  16,  which  refer  to  Paul's 
letters. 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  185 

VI.    THE  JOHANNINE  EPISTLES:  I,  II,  AND  III 

JOHN 

All  the  Johannine  literature,  which  includes  the  three 
letters  of  John  and  the  Fourth  Gospel,  is  written  from 
a  peculiar  point  of  view.  They  approach  Christianity 
from  a  certain  mystic,  supernatural,  and  theological 
standpoint  that  makes  them  individual  and  unique,  just 
as  the  enthusiasm,  affection,  and  personal  tone  of  the 
Pauline  letters  make  them  individual,  unique,  and  in- 
imitable as  a  group  of  writings. 

I  John  has  no  epistolary  salutation,  but  it  frequently 
contains  the  word  "write."  A  number  of  verses  of  I 
John  are  re-incorporated  in  the  Fourth  Gospel,  as  are 
practically  all  of  its  ideas.  I  John  i  contains  many  of 
the  ideas  of  John  i.  I  John  4:  12  is  repeated  in  John 
1 :  18.  I  John  4  amplifies  in  great  detail  what  Jesus 
told  the  Woman  of  Samaria  in  John  4 :  24,  namely,  that 
"God  is  Spirit"  (usually  translated  "a  Spirit,"  for  which 
there  is  no  justification  in  the  Greek  of  the  original). 
We  note  again  a  certain  willingness  of  this  author  (or 
group  of  authors:  John  21:24)  to  bandy  about  with 
great  freedom  of  application  the  words  "thief"  and 
"liar"  (John  12:6;  I  John  2:22;  4:20).  The  expres- 
sion "Little  children"  occurs  frequently  (John  13  :  33  ; 
I  John  2:1;  2:12;  2:13;  2 :  28 ;  3:7;  3:18;  4:4;  and 
5:21).  I  John  should  be  read  in  its  entirety.  Upon 
this  letter  Tolstoy  bases  his  celebrated  story,  "What 
Men  Live  By,"  which  is  the  best  commentary  on  it 
that  one  could  possibly  read.  I  John  3:  15  interprets 
perfectly  what  Jesus  meant  in  Matthew  5 :  21  and  22. 

II  John  was  written  by  the  elder  (1:1)  to  the  lady 


i86  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

and  her  children.    HI  John  was  written  to  "the  well- 
beloved  Gains"  (i:  i). 

If  the  student  of  the  New  Testament  will  recall  how 
common  the  name  John  was  in  ancient  as  well  as  in 
modern  times,  and  will  recall  in  his  New  Testament 
reading  mention  of  John  the  Baptist,  John  the  Apostle, 
John  Mark,  John  the  Elder,  and  the  John  of  Revela- 
tion, he  will  at  once  perceive  why  there  has  been  so 
much  confusion  in  identifying  the  authors  of  the  vari- 
ous Johannine  documents  and  why  so  much  doubt  and 
uncertainty  has  existed  with  respect  to  this  problem. 

Vn.    THE  LETTER  OF  JUDE 

Jude  is  an  ugly  corruption  of  the  name  Judas,  be- 
cause of  the  association,  inevitable  in  New  Testament 
times,  with  the  name  of  Judas  Iscariot.  Jude  is  seldom 
read  nowadays,  few  texts  are  taken  from  it,  and  relig- 
ious life  now  is  not  nourished  to  any  extent  by  it.  It 
is  not  "well-thumbed"  or  "wet  with  tears"  like  other 
more  familiar  and  oft-quoted  and  remembered  pages  of 
the  second  great  division  of  the  Bible.  Verse  9  is 
quoted  from  the  apocryphal  book  of  "The  Assumption 
of  Moses,"  and  verses  14,  15  and  "The  Book  of  Enoch." 
Jude  contains  some  passages  of  marked  vigor  and 
beauty  of  expression  (verses  12,  13),  and  has  a  mag- 
nificent benediction  which  survives  in  modern  relig- 
ious expression  (verses  24,  25).  The  author  of  the 
second  Petrine  letter  thought  enough  of  this  docu- 
ment to  incorporate  it  as  the  body  of  his  message.  That 
the  letter  was  doubtless  written  at  a  late  date  is  almost 
consciously  evident  in  verse  3 :    "the  faith  which  was 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  187 

ONCE  delivered  to  the  saints."  The  traditional  view 
of  this  letter  is  that  Jude  was  the  brother  of  Jesus 
(verse  i). 

The  tone  of  this  document  is  forbidding  in  the  ex- 
treme. Verses  3 :  19  are  evidently  aimed  at  heretical 
Doketists  and  Antinomians,  members  of  Gnostic  sects 
who  repudiated  the  historical  Jesus,  and  stamped  his 
career  as  a  phantasm  (dokesis).  A  fuller  discussion 
of  this  is  given,  it  will  be  recalled,  in  our  consideration 
of  the  composition  and  content  of  the  Fourth  Gospel. 

Vni.    THE  HISTORICAL  GROUPING  OF  THE 
NEW  TESTAMENT  DOCUMENTS 

In  our  discussion  of  the  New  Testament  documents 
considered  as  separate  members  of  a  loosely  unified 
collection,  by  the  time-honored  practice  of  "reading 
between  the  lines,"  it  can  be  perceived  that  they  group 
themselves  around  four  significant  events  in  the  his- 
tory of  Christianity.  These  are,  with  the  documentary 
grouping,  as  follows : 

I.     The  Fall  of  Jerusalem  (70  A.  D.)  : 

1.  Mark. 

2.  Matthew. 

II.     Domitian's  Persecutions  (81-96  A.  D.): 

1.  Revelation. 

2.  II  Peter. 

III.     The  Rise  of  the  Greek  Mission : 

1.  Luke. 

2.  Acts. 

3.  Thessalonians  A. 

4.  Galatians. 


i88  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

5.  Corinthians  A. 

6.  Corinthians  B. 

7.  Corinthians  C. 

8.  Corinthians  D. 

9.  Romans,  minus  chapter  16. 

ID.  A  Note  to  Ephesus  (Romans  16). 

11.  Colossians. 

12.  Philemon. 

13.  Philippians. 

14.  Fragments    of    H    Timothy    (B)    and 

Titus. 

15.  Hebrews. 

16.  Thessalonians  B. 

17.  Ephesians. 

18.  James. 

IV.     The  Rise  of  the  Heretical  Sects,  and  of  Do- 
ketism : 

1.  I  Timothy  (A). 

2.  H  Timothy  (B). 

3.  Titus. 

4.  Jude. 

5.  I  Peter. 

6.  I  John. 

7.  H  John. 

8.  HI  John. 

9.  The  Fourth  Gospel. 


PART   V 

THE  BOOK  OF  REVELATION 


PART   V 

THE  BOOK  OF  REVELATION 

We  have  seen  that  the  New  Testament  documents 
fall  naturally  into  four  groups  in  the  historical  order 
of  their  appearance:  (i)  The  Pauline  Literature, 
grouped  around  the  rise  of  the  Greek  mission;  (2)  The 
Early  Gospels,  grouped  around  the  fall  of  Jerusalem 
in  70  A.  D.;  (3)  Hebrews,  I  Peter,  and  Revelation, 
grouped  around  Domitian's  persecution  of  about  95 
A.  D.;  and  (4)  The  Johannine  Literature  and  General 
Letters,  grouped  around  the  rise  of  the  sects  and  of 
heresy.  It  is  to  the  third  division  that  Revelation  be- 
longs. This  document  sets  itself  resolutely  against 
the  emperor-worship  introduced  into  the  Roman  Em- 
pire by  Domitian  upon  his  accession  to  the  throne,  in 
order  to  unify  the  empire.  Coins  and  monuments  were 
ordered  inscribed  in  Latin  with  "deified  Vespasian" 
and  "deified  Domitian" ;  definite  salutation  of  the  em- 
peror's image  in  its  shrine  became  the  custom;  and 
later  incense  burned  before  it  came  to  be  demanded 
of  all  Roman  subjects.  The  idea,  originating  when  the 
Oriental  provinces  of  Rome  had  hailed  Augustus  as  a 
god,  overwhelmed  the  first  century  Christian  with  hor- 
ror and  repugnance.    There  can  be  no  doubt  but  that 

191 


192  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

the  practice  of  emperor-worship  is  meant  by  the 
"worship  of  the  Beast"  and  of  the  "image  of  the  Beast" 
in  Revelation  13,  14,  and  19.  Today  a  practical  man 
of  the  twentieth  century  might  regard  it  as  purely  a 
form,  make  mental  reservations,  and  not  necessarily 
predicate  divinity  with  the  Roman  emperor;  but  the 
naive,  artless  Christians  of  the  early  Church  could  not 
acquiesce  thus.  The  great  note  of  Revelation  is  that 
innate  barbarism  and  innate  civilization  are  forever 
irreconcilable,  that  Christian  civilization  must  inevit- 
ably triumph  over  the  mighty  political  engine  of  Rome. 
Revelation  was  written  by  John,  the  Prophet  of 
Ephesus.  There  is  no  evidence  to  show  that  it  was 
written  by  the  Apostle  John.  It  is  a  hybrid  document, 
part  letter,  part  apocalypse.  The  letters  are  designed 
to  console  and  edify  the  churches  mentioned  during 
the  Prophet's  absence.  The  task  of  the  Prophet  is  to 
steel  his  friends  against  the  cruelty  of  Roman  and 
Jewish  persecution.  The  key-note  of  the  letters  is  that 
"he  that  overcometh  shall  sit  with  me  on  my  throne" 
(Rev.  3:21).  It  is  a  courageous  exhortation  to  stead- 
fastness and  endurance.  The  opening  vision  is  that 
of  God  on  his  throne  with  the  Roll  of  Destiny  in  his 
right  hand,  sealed  tightly  with  seven  seals  on  its  edge, 
and  written  so  that  the  words  overflow  on  the  back  of 
the  manuscript  (Rev.  5:1).  The  contents  are  a  secret, 
but  full  of  meaning.  It  contains  God's  program  for 
the  world,  and  must  be  opened  seal  by  seal  to  be  real- 
ized; and  to  open  it  thus  will  bring  the  program  to 
pass,  since  it  is  the  will  of  God.  Great  grief  is  mani- 
fest because  none  will  venture  near  enough  to  open 
the  seals,  until  the  Lamb  appears,  and  great  exulta- 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  193 

tlon  follows.  As  the  seals  are  opened,  great  (contem- 
porary) events  transpire,  familiar  to  the  readers  of  the 
book.  The  vast  majority  of  able  Bible  scholars  believe 
in  the  PRETERIST  interpretation  of  the  book,— 
namely,  that  Revelation  deals  almost  exclusively  with 
the  events  of  its  own  time,  particularly  at  the  fall  of 
Jerusalem,  70  A.  D.,  and  that  practically  all  of  them 
were  fulfilled  within  the  lifetime  of  its  first  generation 
of  readers. 

Like  the  Gospel  of  Mark,  Revelation  opens  with  the 
notorious  "floating  nominative"  construction  with  a 
relative  clause  appended.^  i :  3  says :  "Blessed  is  he 
who  reads  and  they  who  hear,"  showing  that  it  was 
designed  for  public  reading  in  Christian  congregations. 
The  author  expressly  says  that  his  work  is  a  "proph- 
ecy" (1:3),  and  that  it  is  going  to  deal  with  "things 
which  must  SHORTLY  come  to  pass"  (1:1).  The 
author  is  very  solicitous  that  no  one  tamper  with  his 
manuscript  (Rev.  22:18,  19),  which  was  a  common 
literary  practice  of  the  day.  In  Greek,  Revelation  is 
the  most  ragged  and  blundering  of  511  New  Testament 
documents.  The  simple  elegant  Greek  of  the  Fourth 
Gospel  could  not  possibly  be  from  the  same  hand.  The 
English  translators  of  161 1  have  rendered  it  info  a 
magnificent  style  totally  unlike  the  original. 

Chapter  i. — To  John  the  Prophet  in  his  lonely  exile 
on  the  Isle  of  Patmos  (Rev.  i :  9)  have  come  seven 
messengers  from  seven  churches  of  Asia  Minor  (Rev. 
1 :  11).     Some  of  these  churches  have  not  been  faring 

1  The  first  five  lines  of  Tennyson's  "The  Passing  of  Arthur" 
is  still  another  classical  example  of  the  "floating  nominative" 
construction. 


194  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

well  in  the  absence  of  their  beloved  counsellor.  As  if 
to  anticipate  John's  anxiety,  a  sudden  trance,  or  in- 
spired exaltation,  or,  as  John  himself  states  it  *T  was 
in  the  Spirit  on  the  Lord's  day"  (Rev.  i :  19),  tells  him 
what  messages  to  return  to  the  bishops  ("angels")  of 
the  respective  churches.  He  sees  Jesus  standing  before 
him  clothed  as  the  High  Priest,  in  the  light  of  the 
seven  golden  lamps  (or  "candlesticks"),  unveiled  as 
the  watcher  and  guardian  of  his  numerous  churches, 
perceiving  their  shortcomings  and  errors  as  well  as 
their  commendable  traits,  and  ever  ready  to  rebuke  or 
encourage,  as  the  specific  case  may  require. 

Chapter  2. — To  the  church  of  Ephesus  John  was  re- 
quired to  threaten  to  remove  its  authority  as  a  Chris- 
tian organization  (Rev.  2:5),  if  it  showed  any  more 
of  a  tendency  to  lean  toward  false  doctrine ;  the  church 
at  Smyrna  was  commended  for  its  orthodoxy  in  the 
midst  of  poverty  and  persecution;  the  church  of  Per- 
gamos  was  Christian  in  name  only  (2:13),  but  was 
indulging  in  idolatrous  sins  and  practices ;  as  was  also 
the  church  of  Thyatira. 

Chapter  3. — The  church  of  Sardis  was  backsliding 
into  the  state  of  the  church  of  Pergamos,  Christian  in 
name  only  (3:  i);  the  church  of  Philadelphia  is  com- 
mended for  its  steadfastness  (3:83);  and  the  church 
of  Laodicea,  because  it  was  wealthy,  had  fallen  into  a 
lukewarm    condition    toward    promoting    Christianity 

(3:15-17). 
Chapter  4. — In  the  Spirit :   A  Vision  of  God  on  His 

Throne. 

Chapters  5-1 1. — The  Breaking  of  the  Seven  Seals: 
(Rev.  5:9). 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  195 

Seal  No.  i  :  (Rev.  6:  i,  2)  represents  the  Parthian  in- 
vasion to  help  the  Romans  attack  the  doomed  land  of 
Palestine  and  the  city  of  Jerusalem.  The  Parthians 
were  the  only  ancient  people  Rome  was  unable  to  con- 
quer. Parthia  lay  northeast  of  the  River  Euphrates, 
the  domain  of  ancient  Persia.  Crassus  and  Antony 
failed  disastrously  in  an  effort  to  subdue  them.  In  the 
time  of  Nero  Rome  and  Parthia  became  allies,  and 
continued  thus  for  many  years.  Parthian  chieftains 
always  rode  on  ''sacred"  white  horses,  and  they  and 
their  followers  were  deadily  aims  with  bow  and  arrow. 
In  April,  67  A.  D.,  Vespasian  and  a  Roman  army  in- 
vaded Galilee,  and  as  confederates  their  forces  included 
40,000  Parthian  cavalry. 

Seal  No.  2:  (Rev.  6:3,  4)  represents  the  Romans 
under  Vespasian's  authority. 

Seal  No.  3:  (Rev.  6:5,  6)  represents  famine  seiz- 
ing Jerusalem,  as  it  did  in  a  terrible  manner,  and  sug- 
gests the  leader  of  the  Jewish  revolt  against  Rome, 
John  of  Gischala,  appropriating  the  sacred  oil  and  wine 
for  food,  which  we  know  he  did  from  history. 

Seal  No.  4:  (Rev.  6:7,  8)  represents  pestilence,  the 
"fourth  horseman  of  the  apocalypse,"  which  follows  in 
the  wake  of  prolonged  war. 

Seal  No.  5:  (Rev.  6:9-11)  represents  the  persecu- 
tion of  the  Christians,  who  were  blamed  for  all  na- 
tional misfortunes  at  that  time. 

Seal  No.  6:  (Rev.  6:12  to  8:1,  2)  represents  the 
blotting  out  of  Jerusalem  and  its  temple  by  the  Ro- 
mans in  August,  70  A.  D. 

Seal  No.  7:  (Rev.  8:  i  to  chapter  12)  introduces  the 
Blowing  of  the  Seven  Trumpets: 


196  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

Trumpet  No.  i :  (Rev.  8:6,  7)  represents  the  devas- 
tation of  Galilee  ("the  third  part"  of  Palestine)  by 
Vespasian  and  armies  in  April,  67  A.  D. 

Trumpet  No.  2:  (Rev.  8:8,  9)  represents  the  naval 
battle  on  the  Sea  of  Galilee  the  same  year  between  the 
Romans  and  Jews,  in  which  6500  Jews  perished  and  the 
lake  was  made  a  sickening  puddle  of  dead  bodies. 

Trumpet  No.  3:  (Rev.  8:  10,  11)  represents  John  of 
Gischala,  leader  of  the  Zealots  (anti-Romans),  who 
poisoned  the  streams  of  drinking-water  under  the  plea 
of  military  necessity. 

Trumpet  No.  4:  (Rev.  8:  12,  13)  represents  the  final 
triumph  of  Roman  arms  in  Galilee,  and  the  retreat  of 
the  Jews  southward  toward  Jerusalem. 

Trumpet  No.  5:  (Rev.  9:1-12)  represents  Satan 
("the  star  fallen  from  heaven  to  earth";  Isaiah  14:  12; 
Luke  10:  18)  creating  panic  and  confusion,  and  deeds 
of  monstrous  wickedness,  as  the  history  of  this  time 
reveals. 

Trumpet  No.  6:  (Rev.  9:13  to  11:15)  represents 
the  vast  horde  of  Parthian  invaders  from  the  Euphrates 
valley,  in  four  divisions.  The  number  may  be  slightly 
exaggerated,  but  John  says  "I  heard,"  indicating  a 
rumor  (Rev.  9:16).  Three  bands  of  these  operated 
in  Galilee  (9:  18).  Note  in  particular  the  references 
to  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem  in  11 :  2,  8  and  9. 

Trumpet  No.  7:  (Rev.  11:  15  to  12)  represents  the 
establishment  of  Christianity  as  the  universal  religion 
in  heaven  and  on  earth. 

Chapter  12:  The  Vision  of  the  Sun-Clad  Woman, 
who  typifies  the  Christian  church,  and  the  Dragon,  or 
Satan,  who  seeks  to  destroy  it. 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  197 

Chapter  13:  The  Vision  of  the  Leopard-Like  Beast 
coming  up  out  of  the  sea  represents  probably  the  re- 
lentless advance  on  and  grasp  of  the  city  of  Jerusa- 
lem by  the  Romans:  the  Second  Beast  (13:  11)  com- 
ing up  out  of  the  land  is  false  religion,  emperor-wor- 
ship, anti-Christ  doctrine,  and  heresy.  The  number 
666  (13:  18)  is  interpreted  by  Iranaeus,  an  old  church 
father,  to  mean  Rome,  for  the  name  Lateinos  has  the 
number  666,  and  Lateinos  is  common  Greek  for  both 
the  names  of  a  nation  and  of  an  individual.  It  means 
the  Latins,  or  Romans.  It  may  mean  "Nerone  CSesar," 
for  letters  had  then  numerical  values.  An  old  inscrip- 
tion found  in  the  ruins  of  Pompeii  says :  "The  name  of 
her  I  love  is  347." 

Chapter  14:  This  chapter  alludes  to  the  fall  of  Jeru- 
salem, and  the  paving  of  the  way  thereby  for  the  scat- 
tering of  the  Christians  to  use  the  world  as  the  harvest- 
field  of  the  Gospel. 

Chapters  15  and  16:  introduce  the  Seven  Vials  of 
Wrath,  which,  like  the  Seven  Seals  and  the  Seven 
Trumpets,  deal  with  practically  the  same  events : 

Vial  No.  i:  (Rev.  16:  i,  2)  may  represent  the  per- 
secution of  the  Herodians  and  pro-Romans  by  the 
Zealots,  or  anti-Romans,  under  John  of  Gischala,  "the 
mark  of  the  beast"  alluding  to  sympathy  with  Rome. 

Vial  No.  2:  (Rev.  16:  3)  represents  the  naval  battles 
on  the  Sea  of  Galilee,  the  Dead  Sea,  and  the  Mediter- 
ranean, in  which  thousands  of  Jews  were  slaughtered. 

Vial  No.  3  :  (Rev.  16:  4-7)  refers  to  the  Jewish  blood- 
shed on  land,  67-70  A.  D. 

Vial  No.  4:  (Rev.  16:  8,  9)  may  be  taken  either  liter- 
ally or  figuratively ;  if  the  latter,  it  refers  to  the  Roman 


198  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

government's  unrelenting  punishment  of  Jewish  in- 
subordination. 

Vial  No.  5:  (Rev.  16:  10,  11)  is  uncertain  in  mean- 
ing: "The  seat  of  the  beast"  is  here  possibly  Rome, 
to  which  Vespasian  was  compelled  to  return  from 
Palestine  to  determine  the  occupancy  of  the  throne, 
leaving  his  son  Titus  to  subdue  the  Jews ;  possibly  it 
is  Caesarea,  the  Jewish  seat  of  the  Roman  government ; 
possibly,  but  not  probably,  it  is  Jerusalem,  where  cer- 
tain Roman  governors,  like  Pilate,  had  preferred  to 
hold  forth  instead  of  in  Caesarea. 

Vial  No.  6:  (Rev.  16:  12-16)  refers  to  the  fact  that 
the  River  Euphrates,  the  boundary-line  between  the 
Roman  and  Parthian  empires,  did  not  exist  (in  a  figur- 
ative sense)  when  the  two  combined  to  make  war  upon 
Palestine,  67-70  A.  D. 

Vial  No.  7:  (Rev.  16:17-21)  refers  clearly  to  the 
destruction  of  Jerusalem,  which  appears  under  the 
odious  appellation  of  "Babylon"  many  times  in  the 
book  (14:8;  16:  19;  17:  5,  etc.). 

Chapter  17.  It  is  essential  to  notice  sharply  the  two 
main  metaphors  of  this  chapter:  the  Scarlet  Woman, 
Babylon  (I  Peter  5:  13),  drunk  with  the  blood  of  mar- 
tyrs and  her  soul  stained  with  crime  and  vice,  is  Jeru- 
salem;  the  Beast  ON  WHICH  SHE  SITS  is  Rome, 
the  City  of  Seven  Hills  (Rev.  17:9).  Jerusalem  owed 
her  strength  and  authority  to  Rome,  who  protected 
her  from  heathen  invasion.  The  seven  kings  referred 
to  in  verses  10:  14  are  the  seven  emperors,  Augustus, 
Tiberius,  Caligula,  Claudius,  Nero,  who  have  fallen ; 
the  sixth  is  Vespasian ;  the  seventh,  who  "must  con- 
tinue a  short  space,"  is  Titus,  who  ruled  two  years. 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  199 

The  eighth  is  Domitian  (v.  11).  Verse  18  means  that 
Jerusalem,  aided  and  abetted  by  Rome,  was  constantly 
stirring  up  persecution  against  the  church  throughout 
the  Roman  empire. 

Chapter  18.  This  chapter  is  a  funeral-dirge,  or  elegy, 
over  the  tragic  fall  of  Jerusalem,  August,  70  A.  D. 
The  scenes  described  were  possibly  witnessed  by  John, 
and  verses  17  and  18  are  autobiographical.  Verses  12 
and  13  catalogue  the  plunder  carried  off  by  Titus  to 
Rome,  and  John's  list  has  been  found  to  be  quite  accur- 
ate, for  every  article  named  is  corroborated  by  the 
Jewish  history  of  Josephus. 

Chapter  19.  A  Heavenly  Celebration  of  the  Fulfill- 
ment of  God's  Justice  upon  Jerusalem. 

Chapters  20,  21,  and  22  describe  the  spread  and  ulti- 
mate triumph  of  the  Christian  church  over  all  its  ad- 
versaries, whether  temporal  or  spiritual;  and  for  the 
former,  ancient  history  from  the  time  of  Constantine 
the  Great  on  verifies  John's  prophecy.  For  the  latter, 
the  abolition  of  great  national  evils  in  both  the  medi- 
aeval and  modern  world  may  testify,  but  there  is  yet  a 
long  road  to  travel. 

(a)  Gog  and  Magog:  (Rev.  20:8)  are  spoken  of  in 
Ezekiel  38  and  39.  Gog  is  the  Sultan  of  Turkey,  who, 
with  his  Mohammedan  barbarians,  overran  Asia  Minor, 
including  Syria  and  Palestine,  capturing  Jerusalem  for 
the  first  time  in  1077,  and  thus  precipitated  the  Franco- 
British  crusades  of  which  all  school-boys  know.  This 
Turkish  invasion  happened  about  a  thousand  years 
after  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem,  70,  coming  within 
seven  years  of  John's  prophecy  (Rev.  20:7,  8)- 

(b)  The  Temple  in   Heaven.     In   Revelation   11  :i 


200  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

John  was  required  to  measure  the  temple,  with  the 
purpose  of  preserving  historically  its  details  of  size 
and  structure.  The  temple  on  earth  was  then  destroyed 
as  described,  and  opened  thenceforth  to  men  in  heaven 
(Rev.  11:19  and  chapter  21). 

(c)  The  Two  Witnesses:  (Rev.  11:3-12)  are  sur- 
mised to  have  been  James  and  Jude,  authors  of  the 
Epistles  of  the  New  Testament  bearing  their  names. 
On  the  former's  monument  is  said  to  have  been  in- 
scribed:  "He  hath  been  a  true  witness." 

(d)  The  Beast  and  the  False  Prophet:  (Rev.  19:  19, 
20)  allude  respectively  to  Rome  and  heresy,  or  anti- 
Christ. 

(e)  The  Tranquil  New  Heaven  and  New  Earth  is 
reflected  in  the  language  of  Revelation  21  and  22  in 
direct  contrast  to  the  lurid,  calamitous  scenes  of  the 
preceding  chapters.  Its  last  sentences  in  particular 
are  rare  sentences  of  universal  literature,  making  it 
rank  along  with  Homer,  Job,  Shakespeare,  Dante,  and 
other  great  masterpieces.  Francis  Thompson,  the  emi- 
nent English  poet  and  essayist,  declares  that  the  Book 
of  Revelation  reflects  in  its  wording  the  scenic  beauty 
of  the  isle  of  Patmos.  The  expression  "And  there  was 
no  more  sea"  (21:  i),  indicates  the  deadly  monotony 
inflicted  on  the  mind  by  habitually  living  by  the  ocean, 
the  effect  so  graphically  portrayed  by  Tennyson  in 
"Enoch  Arden."  Rev.  22 : 2  may  reflect  further  the 
landscape  of  Patmos.  The  author  of  Revelation  quite 
apparently  lived  in  a  hot  climate  if  we  may  judge 
from  7:  16,  where  it  is  declared  that  in  heaven  "neither 
shall  the  sun  light  on  them,  nor  any  heat."  What 
would  an  Eskimo  think  of  such  a  description  of  heaven  ? 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  201 

The  Book  of  Revelation  has  been  long  used  as  the 
"Puzzle-Book  of  the  New  Testament."  To  this  day  it 
is  refused  a  place  in  the  canon  of  the  Greek  Orthodox 
Church.  Many  sects  have  based  their  tenets  upon  its 
prophecies,  and  it  has  given  rise  to  many  futile  fancies 
in  religion.  Though  the  universe  crashed  into  ruins, 
however,  its  composer  had  eternal,  unshakable  faith 
in  the  certain  triumph  of  the  Kingdom  of  God. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

I.    GENERAL  INTRODUCTION  TO  THE  LITER- 
ATURE OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT: 

1.  Jiilicher,  Adolf:     (London,   Smith,   Elder  &   Co., 

1903).  Translated  into  English  by  D.  A.  Ward, 
from  the  fourth  German  edition.  Jiilicher  is 
the  prince  of  all  New  Testament  commentators, 
a  foremost  leader  of  the  liberal  school  of  inter- 
pretation, and  author  of  probably  the  best  schol- 
arly introduction  ever  written. 

2.  Bacon,  Benjamin  W.     (An  Introduction  to  the  New 

Testament,  Macmillan,  1900).  By  the  foremost 
New  Testament  scholar  in  the  United  States,  and 
professor  at  Yale  University.  A  leading,  scholarly 
authority  of  the  liberal  school. 

3.  Bacon,  Benjamin  W.  ("The  Making  of  the  New 

Testament,"  Home  University  Library,  Henry 
Holt  &  Co.,  1912).  A  briefer  compendium,  but 
painfully  condensed  and  somewhat  technical. 

4.  Moffatt,   James.      (International   Theological    Li- 

brary Series,  Scribner's,  191 1).  One  of  the  most 
powerful  and  influential  commentators  of  the 
liberal  school  of  interpretation.  A  ranking 
world  authority. 

5.  Peake,  Arthur  S.   (New  York,  Scribner's,   1910). 

A  work  of  the  conservative  school  by  an  emi- 
205 


2o6  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

nent  British  authority.  Tends  to  defer  to  tra- 
dition too  much,  and  fails  to  come  to  the  firmest 
possible  grasp  of  the  New  Testament  documents. 

6.  Zahn,  Theodor.     (Translated  into  English  by  M. 

W.  Jacobus  from  the  third  German  edition. 
Scribner's,  1909.)  Conservative  and  reaction- 
ary; the  bulwark  of  the  traditionalist  school  of 
interpretation. 

7.  Von  Soden,  Baron.    ("The  History  of  Early  Chris- 

tian Literature :  The  Writings  of  the  New  Tes- 
tament." Translated  into  English  by  J.  R. 
Wilkinson.  Williams  &  Norgate,  1906.)  A  mag- 
nificent work  of  the  liberal  school,  by  a  late  pro- 
fessor at  the  University  of  Berlin.  A  world  au- 
thority of  highest  rank. 

8.  Reuss,  E.   ("A  History  of  the  New  Testament." 

Translated  into  English  by  E.  L.  Houghton  from 
the  fifth  German  edition.  Houghton-Mifflin, 
1884.)  A  splendid  authoritative  commentary, 
now  somewhat  superseded  by  later  research,  but 
still  standard. 

9.  Wrede,  W.    ("The  Origin  of  the  New  Testament." 

Translated  into  English  from  German  by  J.  S. 
Hill.  Harper's,  1909.)  Liberal,  progressive,  il- 
luminating. 

10.  Pfleiderer,  O.      ("Christian  Origin."     Translated 

into  English  from  the  German  by  D.  Huebsch. 
New  York,  B.  W.  Huebsch,  1906.)  A  critical 
study  of  the  animus  of  primitive  Christianity  as 
reflected  in  the  New  Testament  documents. 

11.  Wernle,  P.     ("The  Beginnings  of  Christianity." 

Translated  into  English  by  G.  A.  Bienemann 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  207 

from  the  German.  Williams  &  Norgate,  1904.) 
Liberal ;  somewhat  technical  for  beginners. 

12.  Goodspeed,  E.  J.  ("The  Story  of  the  New  Testa- 

ment." University  of  Chicago  Press.)  A  brief, 
scholarly  estimate  of  the  authorship  and  origins 
of  every  New  Testament  document,  each  in 
chronological  order.     Intended  as  a  primer. 

13.  Burkitt,  F.  C.    "The  Earliest  Sources  for  the  Life 

of  Jesus":  (Houghton-Mifflin,  Boston,  1910). 
An  elementary  critical  treatment  of  the  docu- 
mentary sources  from  which  the  facts  of  the 
life  of  Jesus  have  been  derived,  by  an  eminent 
scholar  of  the  liberal  school.  His  presentation 
of  materials  is  simple  and  readable. 

H.    PAULINE  LITERATURE 

1.  Wrede,    W.    ("Paul."     Translated    into    English 

from  German  by  E.  Lummis.  London,  P.  Green, 
1907.)  Conceives  Paul  as  the  real  founder  of 
Christianity,  and  is  therefore  unbalanced,  but 
contains  much  scholarly  material. 

2.  Weiss,  J.     ("Paul  and  Jesus."     Translated  into 

English  from  German  by  H.  J.  Chaytor.  Har- 
per's, 1909.)  Conceives  Jesus  as  the  real  founder 
of  Christianity  rather  than  Paul,  and  is  better 
and  more  balanced  than  Wrede's  treatise,  to 
which  it  is  respondent. 

3.  Baur,  F.  C.     ("Paul,  the  Apostle  of  Jesus  Christ, 

His  Life  and  Work,  Epistles  and  Doctrine." 
Williams  &  Norgate,  1876.  Translated  into 
English  by  A.   Menzies  from  the  second  Ger- 


2o8  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

man  edition.)  A  commentary  that  revolution- 
ized the  whole  scholarship  of  Paulinism. 
Other  lives  of  Paul  by  Bacon,  Shaw,  Ramsay,  Cony- 
beare  and  Howson,  Wright,  Eleanor  Wood, 
Cone,  Clemen,  etc.,  are  accessible  in  divinity 
school  libraries  and  elsewhere. 

HI.   JOHANNINE  LITERATURE 

1.  Scott,  E.  F.     ("The  Fourth  Gospel,  Its  Purpose 

and  Theology."  T.  &  T.  Clark  1906.)  The  lead- 
ing authority  on  the  Fourth  Gospel  and  Johan- 
nine  Epistles.  A  professor  at  the  Union  Theologi- 
cal Seminary,  New  York  City. 

2.  Bacon,   Benjamin  W.     ("The   Fourth   Gospel   in 

Research  and  Debate."  Moffat,  Yard  &  Co., 
1910.)  A  scholarly,  incisive  treatise,  by  the 
leading  American  authority. 

3.  Schmiedel,   P.  W.     ("The  Johannine  Writings." 

Translated  into  English  by  M.  A.  Canney  from 
the  German.  A.  &  C.  Black,  1903.)  Coincides 
with  Bacon  in  conclusions  as  to  origins  of  the 
Johannine  literature. 

IV.    SOCIAL  CHRISTIANITY 

I.  Mathews,  Shailer.  ("The  Church  and  the  Chang- 
ing Order."  Macmillan,  1907.)  A  sane,  scien- 
tific discussion  of  the  future  status  of  the  church 
as  an  institution  in  modern  civilization,  by  the 
dean  of  the  Divinity  School,  University  of  Chi- 
cago. 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  209 

2.  Rauschenbusch,  Walter.     ("A  Theology  for  the 

Social  Gospel."  Macmillan,  1917.)  Rauschen- 
busch started  on  a  popular  basis  the  widespread 
study  of  social  Christianity  in  America  and 
abroad.  Late  professor  in  the  Baptist  seminary 
at  Rochester,  N.  Y. 

3.  Ibid.     (''Christianizing  the  Social  Order."     Mac- 

millan, 191 2.)     An  epoch-making  discussion. 

4.  Ibid.     ("The  Social  Principles  of  Jesus."     Asso- 

ciation Press,  1919.)  A  stimulating,  brief  trea- 
tise, the  starting-point  of  the  author's  later  con- 
ceptions. 

5.  White,   Bouck.      ("The   Call   of  the   Carpenter." 

Doubleday,  Page  &  Co.,  191 1.)  A  brilliant  but 
radical  and  one-sided  conception  of  Jesus  of 
Nazareth  as  the  champion  of  world  labor.  A 
socialistic  treatise,  but  has  run  through  several 
editions. 

6.  White,   Bouck.     ("The  Carpenter  and  the   Rich 

Man."  Doubleday,  Page  &  Co.,  1913.)  A  bril- 
liant but  radical  and  one-sided  treatment  of  the 
leading  parables  of  Jesus  from  the  socialistic 
standpoint. 

7.  Peabody,  Francis  G.     ("Jesus  Christ  and  the  So- 

cial Question."  Macmillan,  1900.)  A  masterly 
popular  treatment  of  the  social  principles  of 
Jesus  by  the  Plummer  Professor  of  Christian 
Morals,  Emeritus,  Harvard  University. 

8.  Davenport,  F.  M.     ("Primitive  Traits  in  Religious 

Revivals."  Macmillan,  1905.)  The  psychology 
and  sociology  of  revivalism  as  a  primitive  sur- 
vival type  of  nervous  instability. 


210  THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

9.  Cutten,  G.  B.  ("The  Psychological  Phenomena  of 
Christianity."  Scribner's,  1908.)  A  treasury  of 
information  on  nervous  aberrations  manifested 
in  primitive  types  of  religious  worship. 

10.  Ames,   Edward  Scribner.      ("The  Psychology  of 

Religious  Experience."  Houghton-Mifflin,  1910.) 
A  scholarly  work.  Advocates  salvation  by  edu- 
cation as  the  future  Christianity. 

11.  Ibid.       ("The   New   Orthodoxy."     University  of 

Chicago  Press,  1918.)     Portrays  religion  as  an 
organic  and  integral  part  of  everyday  life. 
Treatments  of  the  social  implications  of  Christianity 
are  too  numerous  to  mention,  but  the  preceding  will 
serve  to  start  the  beginner  aright  who  is  chiefly  inter- 
ested in  this  aspect  of  religion. 

V.    THE  RESURRECTION 

I.  Bowen,  Clayton  R.  ("The  Resurrection  in  the 
New  Testament."  G.  P.  Putnam's,  1911.)  The 
most  scholarly  and  comprehensive  treatment  of 
the  subject  in  English,  and  freest  from  dog- 
matic preposessions. 

VI.    TEXTUAL  PROBLEMS 

1.  Smyth,  J.  Paterson.     ("How  We  Got  Our  Bible." 

James  Potts  &  Co.,  1899.)  Deals  with  the  manu- 
scripts now  in  existence  from  which  the  Bible 
is  taken,  particularly  the  Vatican,  Sinaitic,  and 
Alexandrian  Mss. 

2.  Bowen,    Clayton    R.      ("The    Gospel    of   Jesus." 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  211 

1916.)     The  historic  residuum  of  the  Gospels, 
with    passages    of   doubtful    historicity    elimin- 
ated. 
To  this  group  belongs  also  the  various  so-called  gos- 
pel  "harmonies"   with   the   same   materials   from   the 
Synoptics  arranged  in  three  parallel  columns  for  syn- 
chronous comparison,  of  which  Huck's  is  a  standard 
work. 


INDEX 


INDEX 


Acts,    3,    12,   22,    104,    122,    125, 

161-166,    178,    179. 
Ames,  E.  S.,  124,  210. 
Ancestry  of  Jesus,  38. 
Angelology    and    demonology, 

38,  62.  107. 
Antichrist,   139-141,   191,  200. 
Antinomians,  187. 
Annas,  32,  91. 
Antioch, 

—in  Pisidia,  128,  152. 

—in  Syria,  127,  1S9,  150. 
Apocalypse,  4,  140,   191-201. 
Apollos,  144,  151.  180. 
Apostolic  Council,  129,  153,  156. 
Archimedes,   164. 
Aristides,  120. 
Ascension  of  Jesus,  104. 
Asia,  133,  193. 

Athens.  Paul  at,  135,  141,  142. 
Augustine,   124. 


B 


Babylon,   182,    198. 

Bacon,  B.  W.,  8,  16,  29,  31,  74, 

86.   106,    136,   161,   170,   172, 

183.  205,  208. 
Baptist,    John    the,    41-44,    73, 

144.    151,   186. 
Beloved  Disciple,  the,  24,  31. 
Berea.  Paul  at,  135. 
Bibliography,    205-211. 
Birth  of  Jesus,  37. 


Blindness    (miracles),    68. 
Booth,  Gen.  William,  43. 
Bowen,   C.   R.,   61,   62,  86,   103, 

106,   179,  210. 
Bradford,  William,  120. 
Browning,  141. 
Bunyan,  59. 
Burton.   E.  D.,   179. 


Caesarea,  93,  122,  162,  171,  198. 

Caiaphas,  91,  124. 

Canon,   9,   180. 

Centurion's  servant  healed,  65. 

Chalmers,  Thomas,  120. 

"Cinderella  Gospel,"   17. 

Clement  of  Alexandria,  24,  179, 

180. 
Coin  in  fish's  mouth,  73. 
Colossians,  166-171. 
Colossians-Ephesians   Problem, 

166. 
Corinth,  Paul  at,  142,  148,  150, 

160. 
Corinthian  Epistles,  144-150. 
Cowper,  99. 
Crucifixion  of  Jesus,  96,  105. 


D 


Dapte.   200. 
Deismann,   171. 
Demetrius,    150. 
Demonology  (see  Angelology) 
— miracles  of,  62. 


215 


2l6 


INDEX 


Diary  of  Acts,  131. 
Doketism,  29,  184,  187. 
Domitian.  182,  187,  191.  199. 


Ecclesiastes,  32. 
Elder,  John  the,  186. 
Empty  tomb,  104-107. 
Ephesians,  168-170. 
Ephesus, 

— note  to,   160. 

—Paul  at.  150,  151,  170.  179. 
Epistles, 

— cosmic,  168. 

—general,    138,    169,    177-188. 

—Pauline,   135-172. 

— prison,  166-172. 
Eschatology    (end    of    world), 
21,    107-109.    137,    139.    147, 
184. 
Eusebius,  17. 


Feeding  the  multitudes,  72. 
Felix:,  162. 

Festus,   Porcius,  163. 
Fig-tree  cursed,  72. 
Fourth  Gospel,  24-32. 


Gains, 

—of  Corinth.  143. 

—of  3rd  John,  186. 
Galatians,    :i  51-158. 
Gamaliel,   122,   160. 
Gibbon,    101. 
Gnosticism,  29,   187. 
Goguel,   171. 

Goodspeed,  E.  J.,  86,  137,  165, 
179. 

H 

Hale,  Nathan,  120. 
Harnack,  20,  138.  180. 
Hausrath.  148. 


Healing  the  sick,  64-69. 
Hebrews,  Epistle  to,  179. 
Herod, 

— Agrippa,  163. 

— Antipas,    95. 

—the  Great,  32.  40. 
Homer.    133.   200. 
Horace.   133. 
Holtzmann,   86,   168. 
Hughes,  Charles  E.,  120. 


Incarnation,  26-30. 
Infancy, 

— Narrative  of  Luke,  19,  23, 
88. 

— of  Jesus,  37. 
Iranaeus,  197. 
Issue   of  blood    (miracle),  66. 


Jairus'   daughter    restored,    69. 
James, 

—Apostle,    31,    32,    57,    156, 
176. 

— brother  of  Jesus,  37. 

—Epistle  of,  181. 
Jerusalem, 

—Church  at,  129,  131. 

— Council  at,  129,  153. 
Joan  of  Arc,  120. 
Job,  200. 
Johannine  Tradition,  3,  16,  24- 

32,   74,  87,  185-187,  208. 
John, 

—Apostle,  24,  25,  32,  57,  179, 
186. 

—Baptist,  41,  72,  95,  144,  151, 
186. 

—Elder.  186. 

— Epistles  of,  185,  188. 

—Mark.   17,  21,  127. 

—Prophet,  186.  192,  193. 

—Revelation  of,  7,  13,  187. 
Josephus,   105,  199. 
Judaism,  modern,  85. 
Judaizers,  129,  153-159,  167. 


INDEX 


217 


Judas  Iscariot,  88,  90,  186. 
Jude,   Epistle  of,  4,  6,  37,  183, 

186.  188. 
Jiilicher,   Adolf,    137,    160,   169, 

182.  205. 
Julius  Caesar,  152,  165. 


K 


Kingfdom  of  God,  27,  46-51,  55, 

94,   108. 
KiuRsley,  Charles,  170. 
Koheleth,  32. 
Kohler,  86. 
Knox.  120. 


Matthean  Tradition,  16. 
Matthew, 

— Evangelist,  16,  20,  55,  106. 

—Gospel  of,  3,  10,  15,  16-21, 
45,  50,  88,  106,  179,  187. 
McGiffert.   137,    169. 
Missionary  Journey, 

—First,  126-129. 

—Second,  131-150. 

—Third,  150-160. 

—Fourth,  178,  179. 
Moffat.  137,   169. 
Montefiore,  C.  F.,  85. 


N 


Lake.   171. 
Lanciari.   166. 
Laodicea,    127,   184,   194. 
Last  Supper.  88. 
Law.  50,   108,    154-158. 
Lazear,  J.  W.,  120. 
Leprosy    (miracles),   67. 
Lessing,  60, 
Lincoln,  120. 
Lisco,  171. 
Log^os,  28. 
Luke. 

— Acts   (q.v.), 

—Evangelist,  22,  132,  164. 

—Gospel  of,  3.  11.  15,  17,  19, 
22,  37,  47,  50,  64-66,  69,  71, 
73,  75,  88,  187. 
Luther,  32.  87,  120,  180,  182. 
Lydia,    133. 


M 


Marcion's  Canon,  180. 
Marcus.  Aurelius,   120. 
Mark. 
—Evangelist,  17,  21,  127. 
—Gospel   of,   3,   7,    11,   16-19, 
21,  33,  63.  64,  105,  106,  187. 
— Leaves  Paul  and  Barnabas, 
127. 


Nature-miracles,   71-74. 
Nero,  140,  165,  195. 
Norden,  169. 


Offering  for  poor,  131,  161. 
Onesimus,    167,    170. 
Origen,  24,  179,  180. 


Palestine,  114,  115. 

Papias,  17. 

Parables,  74-84. 

Parallelizing   influence,    18,   73, 

73. 
Paralytic  man    (miracle),   67. 
Parousia,  21,  107-109,  137,  139, 

147,  184. 
Passover,  89.  100. 
Pastoral  Epistles,  177-179. 
Patmos.  193,  200. 
Paul. 

— activity  against  Christians, 
123. 

—birth,  121. 

— conversion,  124. 

—martyrdom,  166,  179. 

— parentage.  121. 
Peabody,  F.  G.,  59,  209. 
Pergamos,   194. 


2l8 


INDEX 


Peter. 
—Apostle.  17,  18,  55,  69,  70, 
86,  90,  91,  92,  101,  130,  182, 
183. 
— confession  of,  84. 
—Epistles,   182-184. 
— mother-in-law  healed,  66. 
— source   of    Mark's    Gospel, 
17.  18. 
Petrine  Tradition,  3,  17,  18,  70, 

182-184. 
Pharisees,  43,  51,  74-84,  87,  91, 

98,  122,  123. 
Philadelphia,  194. 
Philemon,  167,  170. 
Philippi,  Paul  at,  133. 
Philippians,  133,  172. 
Pick.  Bernard,  128. 
Pilate,   Pontius.   32,  93-96,   106, 

198. 
Plato,  30.  137. 
Pliny,  127. 
Prayer,  51-55. 
Precepts,  3,  10,  14,  47. 
Preface  of  Luke,  23. 
Priscilla,  143,  150,  151,  180. 
Prologue  of  John,  28. 
Proseucha.  133. 

Q 

Q-material,  19,  45,  50,  75. 


"Reconciliation     Letter,"     148- 

150. 
Renan,  Ernest,  20. 
Repentance,  43. 
Restoring  the  dead,  69-71. 
Resurrection,  86,  100-107. 
Revelation    of    John,    3,   7,    13, 

140,   187,  191-201. 
Romans,    Epistles    to,    3,    159, 

188. 
Rome,    22,    33,    37,    45,    48,    90, 

93,   120,   122,   140,    159,    160, 

165,  171,  179,  182,  191-201. 


Saliva   miracles,    64,    65. 

Sanhedrin,   91. 

Sardis,  194. 

Satan.  .    , 

— kingdom  of,  48. 

— tempts  Jesus,   44. 
Scott.  E.  P.,  30,  208. 
Second  Coming  (see  Parousia). 
Seleucia,  127. 
Sergius  Paulus,  127. 
Sermon  on  the  Mount,  49-55. 
Seven  words  of  cross,  99. 
Shakespeare,  84,  137,   177,  200. 
Shylock,  121. 
Signs,  (miracles),  61,  74. 
Smyrna,  194. 
Smyth,   J.    P.,   105,   210. 
Socrates,  30. 

"Sorrowful  letter,"  148,  149. 
Stephen,   123,   124. 
Synoptic  Gospels,  14-23. 
Swift,  88. 


Tennyson,  193,  200. 

Thessalonians,  Epistles  to,  135- 
141. 

Thessalonica,  Paul  at,  134. 

Thompson,  Francis,  200. 

Thyatira,  194. 

Tiberius,  198. 

Timothy,  131,  132  (see  Pas- 
toral Epistles). 

Titus,  129,  131,  156,  (see  Pas- 
toral Epistles). 

Tolstoy,  185. 

Toussaint  L'Ouverture,  120. 

Transfiguration,  the,  86. 

Triumphal  Entry,  the,  86-88. 

Trial  of  Jesus,  90-96. 

Twain,  Mark,  17. 

Twelve,  the,  55. 


Vespasian,  191,  195,  196,  198. 


INDEX 


219 


Von   Soden,   H.,  137.   168,   169, 
206. 

w 

Walking:  on  the  water,  73. 

WashinRton,  120. 

Wellhausen.  86. 

Wesley,  120. 

Widow's   Son   of   Nain,  70. 

Williams,   Roffer,  120. 


Wise.  S.  S..  85. 
Withered  hand    (miracle),  66. 
X 

Xavier,  Francis,  120. 
Xenophon,   30. 
Xerxes,  133. 


Zahn.  Theodor,  153,  169,  206. 


Date  Due 

iMMMni 

» 

ill 

f) 

